A patient “linked to the conglomerate of bilateral pneumonia cases” registered in Tucumán died this Sunday, bringing the number of fatalities from this cause to five, reported the provincial Ministry of Public Health.
The part added that “it is a 64-year-old male patient, with comorbidities, who was hospitalized in serious condition, in the public sector” for this disease linked to the Legionella bacterium, according to the confirmation in the laboratories of the National Administration of Laboratories and Health Institutes “Dr. Carlos Malbrán”.
On Sunday, the Nation’s Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti, confirmed that the bilateral pneumonia outbreak was caused by a bacterium called Legionellabased on the results of the studies carried out on the samples sent from Tucumán to the National Administration of Laboratories and Health Institutes “Dr. Carlos Malbrán”.
“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 surname is being typified”Vizzotti said.
“The suspicion is that it is an outbreak of Legionella Pneumophila,” she indicated, and clarified that “there is still progress in what would be the final diagnosis,” Vizzotti expanded at a press conference at the Tucumán Ministry of Health, where she was accompanied by her provincial pair, Dr. Luis Medina Ruiz, and by the representative in Argentina of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Eva Jané Llopis.
The national official said that “it is a bacterium that is transmitted by inhalation through water or air conditioning” and added that “it has antibiotic treatment and significant resistance in people at risk, over 50 years of age, smokers, diabetics and people with immunocompromise or respiratory diseases”.
So far, eleven people affected by bilateral pneumonia caused by Legionella have been identified at the Luz Médica private clinic, of whom five have died.
On Sunday, local authorities had reported the fourth fatal case, a 48-year-old man affected by the same cause.
It was about “a 48-year-old male patient, with comorbidities, who was hospitalized in serious condition in the public sector”it was reported shortly before noon in an official statement.
The Tucuman health portfolio reported on Saturday the appearance of case number 11 and said that “it is a 64-year-old male patient, with comorbidities, hospitalized in serious condition with mechanical ventilation, in the private sector.”
On Friday, the Tucuman government had reported that an 81-year-old man, with comorbidities, was hospitalized in serious condition in a public sector health facility with symptoms of bilateral pneumonia.
The problem became public on August 30, when the Tucumán Health Minister, Luis Medina Ruiz, announced at a press conference that there was an outbreak of bilateral pneumonia of unknown origin.
The first six registered cases corresponded to five health workers and one patient who was hospitalized in the intensive care service of a private sanatorium in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán, who began symptoms between August 18 and 22, presenting fever, myalgia, abdominal pain and dyspnea.
On Saturday, after the meeting led by Vizzotti, the health portfolios agreed on the transfer of 12 patients who remained hospitalized for various pathologies in the private sanatorium where the infections occurred.
“These are 12 people housed in intensive care and other hospital rooms who were referred to the Health Center hospital as part of the contingency health plan, as a result of the Legionella outbreak detected in that institution,” reported the health authority of that province. .
The purpose of the transfer responds to the continuity of the evolution of these patients and to various monitoring and environmental control actions.
The operation was carried out by the Directorate of Health Emergencies 107 and had the collaboration of the Tucumán Police.
On this point, Vizzotti stated that “the local health authorities carried out, from the beginning of the outbreak, epidemiological isolation of the health center and the recommendation that we agree with the provincial team is, having the diagnosis and knowing that it is safe, transfer to these 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.”
