The Argentine authorities announced Wednesday that two people died this week in the northwest of the country after suffering from acute pneumonia of “unknown source” that baffled doctors.
The Ministry of Health in Tucumán province said that a total of six people were infected with the disease, a patient and five health care providers, all working in the same intensive care unit in a hospital in the province.
She added that one of these patients died on Monday and the other on Wednesday, while three were admitted to the hospital to receive treatment, while the sixth patient adhered to the home quarantine because his condition does not require hospitalization.
The Minister of Health of the Regional Government, Luis Medina Ruiz, told reporters that “these patients share that they have an acute respiratory condition with bilateral pneumonia, and their symptoms are very similar to those of Covid, but the hypothesis that they have corona has been excluded.”
He added that the six patients underwent a large number of tests, all of which were negative, noting that among these tests were “Covid, cold, influenza of both types A + and B +, Hantavirus (infection transmitted by rodents), and 25 other germs.” .
According to the minister, the injury may be caused by an infection, but at the same time, the doctors did not completely rule out the possibility that it was caused by some poisoning, noting that analyzes are being conducted in particular on water and air conditioning systems.
For its part, the Ministry of Health of the province said that the six injured are “five health workers and a patient in the intensive care unit of a private clinic in San Miguel de Tucumán, and symptoms began to appear on them between August 18 and 22.”
“No new infection has been recorded since August 22,” including among close contacts of these patients, she added in a statement. The regional minister considered the absence of new infections to be “positive news,” stressing that the situation was “under control.” He added that samples from patients were sent to the national reference laboratory in the capital, “Institut Malbran in Buenos Aires”, for further analysis, noting that the results of these tests will appear by the end of the week.