The outbreak of bilateral pneumonia that caused the death to four people in the province of Tucumán it was caused by a bacterium called legionella, confirmed this Saturday the Minister of Health of the Nation, Carla Vizzoti.
“In four samples, three respiratory and a puncture biopsy of one of the deceased, a bacterium called legionella is being isolated in the PCR and its last name is being typified,” said Vizzotti, who added that these results are expected to be available. this Saturday.
Vizzotti offered a press conference at the Ministry of Health of Tucumánwhere she was accompanied by the representative in Argentina of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Eva Jané Llopis.
“The suspicion is that it is an outbreak of legionella pneumophila”he indicated, and clarified that “there is still progress in what would be the final diagnosis.”
Vizzotti arrived in San Miguel de Tucumán accompanied by Jané Llopis, to inform the province’s Minister of Health, Luis Medina Ruíz, about the results of the studies carried out on the samples sent by the National Administration of Health Laboratories and Institutes (Anlis ) Dr. Carlos Malbran.
The head of the National Health portfolio explained that “It is a bacterium that is transmitted by inhalation through water or air conditioning”.
“It has antibiotic treatment and significant resistance in people at risk, older than 50 years, smokers, diabetics and people with immunocompromise or respiratory diseases.”
Until now eleven people affected by bilateral pneumonia caused by legionella were identified in the private clinic Luz Médica, of whom four died.
“What was identified in four patients was this legionella and what was done from the sanitary, epidemiological and clinical evaluation point of view, was to define that the outbreak was caused by this bacterium,” said Vizzotti.
“From now on, patients are being referred and actions are being generated in the sanatorium to identify if it is in the water, due to the transmission agent, and determine what are the health actions to improve that situation and that it can be used again. the health center for hospitalization of people without any risk”.
The minister stressed that “in a week the situation was identified in a timely manner, based on joint work between the Nation and the province, transmitting the information in a transparent manner.”
Vizzotti clarified that the sanitary measures to be followed were agreed with the local authorities, which include the transfer of the affected patients.
In this sense, he stated: “The local health authorities carried out, from the beginning of the outbreak, epidemiological isolation of the health center and today the recommendation that we agree with the provincial team is, having the diagnosis and knowing that it is safe, to transfer those patients to another institution, since this does not represent a risk for others and their evolution can be followed. The exhaustive study of the health center will continue in order to be able to generate actions in the building so that it is totally safe to work there again ” .
In view of the foregoing, the minister stated that it is important that the population who are health personnel of the aforementioned medical center or have been a patient or visitor there during the last fortnight of August, consult before the appearance of symptoms (fever with or without respiratory symptoms).
“This history must be consulted and referred. Concrete analysis and evaluation actions will be generated. If indicated, antibiotic treatment is available to treat this infection early now that it is identified,” he emphasized.
For his part, Medina Ruiz reported that so far there are eleven patients who have been registered with this disease, “of which four have died; four remain hospitalized, three of them with mechanical respiratory assistance and three who are under home monitoring, since his clinical picture is less complex”.
On the morning of this Saturday, the Ministry of Health of Tucumán confirmed the death of the fourth patient.
“This is a 48-year-old male patient, with comorbidities, who was hospitalized in serious condition in the public sector,” said the health portfolio report.
“In the common focus, which is the sanatorium, there is no patient who has been infected by close contact, nor in other focuses,” clarified the provincial Minister of Health.
The doctor recalled that last Saturday “they became aware of two patients with bilateral pneumonia who were not with a known etiology of the 30 studies that can be carried out in Tucumán and who came from the same place of work”, which called them “the attention and we began to work on the active search for patients who meet the same conditions and we found six”.
“This is how on Monday we checked that they were neither Covid-19 nor flu, influenza A and B, hantavirus”, so “on Mars we made the decision to make this new epidemic situation known and we generated a contingency plan together with Nation to evaluate the etiology,” he said.
Along these lines, “we developed a patient control strategy, we decided on the sanitary isolation of the private sanatorium and we sent samples to the Malbrán Institute”, the results of which were reported today by Dr. Vizzotti.
