Experts worried about mysterious pneumonia in Argentina

A mysterious pneumonia emerged in Argentina, infecting ten people and killing three. While experts say it’s too soon to be sure, some fear the mysterious infection could be the source of the next Covid-like pandemic.

The mysterious disease was discovered in the South American state of Tucumán, Argentina’s most populous region. Authorities are unsure of the source of the disease, but have ruled out obvious suspicions such as Covid, flu and hantavirus.

Some fear it may have passed from an animal to a human. Eight confirmed cases among healthcare workers in the region were also infected, indicating that it is contagious.

While authorities in Argentina sound the alarm over the unknown disease, many experts are still not worried. An infectious disease specialist at Boston University, Dr. Davidson Hammer told DailyMail.com that the current level of risk for Americans is 0.1 in 10.

Others say it’s too early to cancel, but like many other mysterious diseases in the past, the epidemic is likely to “die”.

Hammer says that in a pre-Covid world, most of these warnings will appear before experts discover that the disease in question is something they were already aware of.

“From my experience of the last 20 years, there are periodic warnings about some mysterious illness or mysterious pneumonia, and they’re part of the world that doesn’t have good diagnostic capabilities,” he said.

“Then they realized it wasn’t unusual to test more extensively.”

However, there are some instances where the infection is new. He talks about the SARS epidemic that started as an unknown disease in Guangdong, China in 2002.

Then there is the mysterious disease that emerged in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, and eventually exploded in the COVID-19 pandemic.

He says it’s “disturbing” to eliminate some of the common causes of pneumonia so quickly because it raises the possibility that the virus is something new and potentially dangerous.

In general, he says, it’s too soon for Americans to worry. He rated the current risk factor as “0.1” on a scale of 10.

The mysterious pneumonia occurred in Argentina’s Tucuman province, the most densely populated region of the South American country.

The disease was detected in ten patients, eight of whom were healthcare workers. Three deaths confirmed as part of the outbreak (archive photo)

Other experts told DailyMail.com that it is too early to make a decision about this infection.

A professor of medicine at the University of Virginia, Dr. “It’s too early to know how alarming this pneumonia epidemic in Argentina is for public health,” said William Petri.

“Our ability to identify the cause of pneumonia through a combination of molecular testing and classical cultures is much better, if not perfect, so uncertainty about the cause of the outbreak will persist for days or weeks.”

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, told DailyMail.com: “More research is needed to understand what’s behind these cases of pneumonia. It is important to investigate this epidemic in detail and to find an ideological agent.’

Professor Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia in the UK, told MailOnline: “Reports of these unexplained pneumonia come in from time to time.

And although most of these outbreaks, whether diagnosed or not, will eventually go away, as we know very well, this is not guaranteed.

“The most important thing is further examination of these samples to find out which virus or bacterium is responsible.”

World Health Organization advisors have publicly supported theories that the outbreak may have been caused by a strain of Legionella, a bacterium that grows in water systems.

Among the three victims are two doctors and a 70-year-old woman admitted to the clinic in northern Argentina.

The first death was recorded on Monday, second Wednesday and third Thursday.

Health directors said the woman who was hospitalized for surgery may have been “patient zero”, but is still investigating that hypothesis.

Of the six people who were treated, four were in serious condition and two were hospitalized after being isolated at home.

All clinical personnel were checked.

Symptoms associated with the disease so far have been vomiting, high fever, diarrhea and body aches.

Tucumán Health Minister Luis Medina Ruiz told local media: “What these patients have in common is severe respiratory disease with bilateral pneumonia and [X-ray] The images are very similar to Covid, but that’s out of the question.’

He said the patients had been tested for more than 30 bugs, including “Covid, the common cold, both type A and B flu,” all of which were negative.

The samples were sent to the Argentinean Administration of National Laboratories and Institutes of Health for further analysis.

The hospital is closed and patient contacts are monitored and isolated.

Authorities are also investigating whether the flood of cases was the result of a bacterial outbreak, possibly from contaminated water or air conditioning.

The health ministry said the outbreak may have come from an infectious agent, but did not rule out “toxic or environmental causes”.