Two people died in Argentina this week from severe pneumonia of “unknown cause” that has intrigued the medical community, health officials said on Wednesday.
A total of six individuals, nurses and one patient from the same intensive care unit at a clinic in Tucuman, presented with this pathology.
One died Monday, another on Wednesday, three were hospitalized and a sixth is in satisfactory condition in home isolation, the Tucuman provincial health ministry said.
“These patients share severe respiratory disease with bilateral pneumonia and have imaging very similar to that of COVID, but this has been ruled out,” provincial minister Luis Medina Ruiz told reporters.
The cases “have already been tested for COVID, influenza, influenza A and B, hantavirus (rodent-borne infections) and 25 other germs,” all of which have tested negative, it said.
According to Mr. Medina, it may be an infectious agent, but toxic, environmental causes are not excluded, and analyzes are also ongoing, especially on water, air conditioning.
“The cases involve five health workers and one patient in the intensive care unit of a private clinic in San Miguel de Tucumán, who showed symptoms between August 18 and 22,” the ministry said in a press release.
“No new cases have been identified since August 22”, even among close contacts of these patients, which the provincial minister described as “positive news” and assured that the situation is “under control”.
Samples have been sent to the national reference laboratory, Instituto Malbran in Buenos Aires, for further analysis and results are expected by the end of the week.