“Patients have in common a severe respiratory condition with bilateral pneumonia and compromised radiographs very similar to Coronavirus. But this is excluded,” said Luis Medina Ruiz, Minister of Health of the Argentine province of Tucuman.
And he added: “We are all in
alert
for this reason we are issuing guides to public and private intensive care units if they find themselves treating patients who have these symptoms, especially to do
a correct diagnosis with all the necessary protocols and PPE
as recommended for all patients with respiratory diseases “.
And contagion –
These pneumonia would have nothing to do with Covid-19 or even with the flu and Hantavirus. All patients diagnosed with this pneumonia at the time nine (eight of these are health workers)have been subjected to
specific analyzes
at the Malbran Institute in Buenos Aires. The Tucuman center where the cases were identified, Luz Médica, a private clinic in the city of San Miguel de Tucuman, was placed in isolation as a precaution.
Patient zero –
The first infected was a 70-year-old woman who had been hospitalized at Luz Mshe was for a routine operation, but after the surgery she developed a lung infection believed to be abnormal that led to her death. Then a doctor and a nurse had died after her.
Pneumonia is under observation – Health authorities are analyzing the facility’s water system, as well as the air conditioning unit. In this way it will be possible to establish whether these pneumonia have a toxic or environmental origin. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) are monitoring the epidemic.