Argentine health officials said on Saturday that four people at a clinic in the northwestern province of Tucuman had died from Legionnaires’ disease, a relatively rare bacterial infection of the lungs.
Health Minister Carla Vizzotti told reporters that Legionnaires’ disease had been identified as the underlying cause of double pneumonia in the four people, who were suffering from high fevers, body aches and breathing difficulties.
The deaths, all since Monday, occurred at a single clinic in the city of San Miguel de Tucuman.
The latest on Saturday morning was that of a 48-year-old man with underlying health problems. A 70-year-old woman who had been operated on at the clinic was also a victim.
Seven other symptomatic cases were identified, all from the same facility and almost all with clinic staff, provincial officials said.
Of those seven, “four remain in the hospital, three of them on respiratory support and three are being monitored at home, with less complicated clinical symptoms,” provincial health minister Luis Medina Ruiz said on Saturday.
The disease, which first emerged at a 1976 meeting of the American Legion veterans’ group in the US city of Philadelphia, has been linked to contaminated water or unclean air conditioning.
When the outbreak was first discovered in Tucuman, doctors tested those affected for Covid-19, flu and the hantavirus, but ruled them all out.
The samples were then sent to the renowned Malbran Institute in Buenos Aires. Tests there indicated legionnaires.
On Wednesday, Medina Ruiz said that “toxic and environmental causes” could not be ruled out. He noted that the clinic’s air conditioning systems were being checked.
According to Vizzotti, authorities are working to ensure the safety of the clinic for patients and staff.
Tucuman Provincial Medical College President Hector Sale described the bacterial infection as “aggressive” earlier this week.
However, he added that it is not usually transmitted from person to person and that no close contact of any of the 11 infected people showed symptoms.
