Published on: 09/04/2022 – 01:04 Modified: 09/04/2022 – 01:02
Buenos Aires (AFP) – Argentine health officials said Saturday that four people at a clinic in the northwestern province of Tucumán had died from Legionnaires’ disease, a relatively rare bacterial infection of the lungs.
Health Minister Carla Vizzotti told reporters that Legionnaires’ disease had been identified as the underlying cause of double pneumonia in the four, who had suffered from high fevers, body aches and breathing problems.
The deaths, all since Monday, occurred in a single clinic in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán.
The latest, on Saturday morning, was that of a 48-year-old man with underlying health problems. A 70-year-old woman who had undergone surgery at the clinic was also a victim.
Seven more symptomatic cases have been identified, all from the same establishment and almost all involving clinic staff, provincial officials said.
Of these seven, “four remain hospitalized, three of them with respiratory assistance and three under home monitoring, with less complicated clinical symptoms,” said the provincial Minister of Health, Luis Medina Ruiz, on Saturday.
The disease, which first appeared at a 1976 meeting of the American Legion veterans group in the US city of Philadelphia, has been linked to contaminated water or unclean air conditioning systems.
When the outbreak was first detected in Tucuman, doctors tested those affected for Covid-19, flu and hantavirus, but ruled them all out.
Samples were then sent to the prestigious Malbran Institute in Buenos Aires. The evidence there pointed to the Legionnaires.
On Wednesday, Medina Ruiz had said that “toxic and environmental causes” cannot be ruled out. He noted that the clinic’s climate control systems were being reviewed.
Vizzotti said authorities are working to ensure the clinic is safe for patients and staff.
Hector Sale, president of Tucuman’s provincial medical school, earlier this week described the bacterial infection as “aggressive.”
But he added that it is not usually spread from person to person and that no close contacts of any of the 11 infected people showed symptoms.
© 2022 AFP