It’s not about Covid-19. In the province of Tucuman, in the northwest of Argentina, two people died this week of severe pneumonia “of unknown origin”, the country’s health authorities announced on Wednesday (August 31st). In total, six people – caregivers and a patient from the same intensive care unit of a clinic in Tucuman – presented this pathology which intrigues the medical profession. “The cases relate to five health workers and a patient in the intensive care unit of a private clinic in San Miguel de Tucumán, who began to show symptoms between August 18 and 22,” the ministry said. of Provincial Health. One person died on Monday 29 and another on Wednesday 31. Three others are hospitalized, and a sixth, in satisfactory condition, is in home isolation, he added. “No new cases have been identified since August 22”, including among close contacts of these patients, which Minister Luis Medina Ruiz described as “positive news”, assuring that the situation is “under control” . “These patients have in common a severe respiratory state with bilateral pneumonia, and present imaging very similar to Covid, but this has been ruled out,” Luis Medina Ruiz told the press. The cases “have already been tested for Covid, influenza, influenza A and B, hantavirus (rodent-borne infections), and 25 other germs,” all of which tested negative, he said. he adds. According to the Minister, it may be an infectious agent, but toxic and environmental causes are not excluded. Analyzes are in progress in particular on water and air conditioning systems. Samples have been sent for further analysis to the national reference laboratory, the Instituto Malbran in Buenos Aires, and results are expected by the end of the week.