A legionella bacterium is the cause of pneumonia which has killed four people since the beginning of the week in Tucuman, in the north-west of Argentina, and which intrigued the local medical community, the minister announced on Saturday September 3. Health Carla Vizzotti.
The agent that caused the outbreak of bilateral pneumonia “is legionella”, said the minister at a press conference in Tucuman, adding that the precise type of legionella is being qualified. Four people have died since Monday, and a total of eleven cases have been identified, centered around a private clinic, San Miguel de Tucuman.
Saturday morning the provincial health authorities announced a fourth death since Monday, a 48-year-old man, with comorbidities. Before him, two members of the nursing staff of the private clinic had died, then a 70-year-old woman, a patient in this same clinic where she had undergone surgery.
A total of 11 people showed similar symptoms, and seven are still under treatment, according to the provincial ministry. Of the ten initial cases, eight were health care staff at that clinic.
Ongoing analysis on water and air conditioning
Examinations had ruled out Covid, flu, type A and B influenza, and hantavirus (transmitted by rodents) causes for these pneumonias, raising questions, and samples had been sent to the Malbran Institute in Buenos Aires, national reference on infectious diseases, of which the Minister has given the first results.
“The name of the bacterium is being typified, but it is possible that it is (Legionella) pneumophila”, said Ms. Vizztti. Legionellosis is a serious pulmonary infection of bacterial origin, which can be contaminated by the respiratory route by inhaling contaminated water. “It was never about an ‘unknown virus’, but rather that we had bilateral pneumonia of unknown origin”she pointed out.
The provincial Minister of Health Luis Medina Ruiz had put forward on Wednesday the hypothesis of an infectious agent, but specified that were not excluded “toxic or environmental causes”. He had notably announced ongoing analyzes of the clinic’s water and air conditioning system.
“Measurements are underway in the clinic to identify if it (the bacterial agent) is in the water, and on the accumulator tank”in order to “Use the clinic again without any risk”explained Minister Vizzotti.
The president of the Medical College of the province of Tucuman, Hector Sale, had pointed out this week that the pathology observed in Tucuman was ” agressive “but that it was not a priori a disease involving transmission from person to person, “because the close contacts of these patients have no symptoms”.