The World Health Organization (WHO) is monitoring several cases of pneumonia of unknown origin in Argentina, where three deaths have been recorded so far.
Ten cases have been linked to a private clinic in the northwestern city of San Miguel de Tucuman, the Pan American Health Organization, the WHO’s regional office, announced.
All tests for known respiratory viruses and other viral, bacterial and fungal agents are negative, and authorities rule out the possibility of COVID-19, according to the release.
Michael Osterhom, an expert in infectious lung diseases from the University of Minnesota, believes that the cause of the disease may be something that the patients inhaled, since the lungs of the patients were mainly affected by the infection.
According to him, sometimes “mysterious diseases” occur, and most often they are explained by local causes that generally do not have pandemic implications.