The Legionella turns on alarms in the Province. As happened last year due to an outbreak of this disease that can be fatal, a confirmed case in La Plata put the Buenos Aires health system on guard.
As EL DIA learned from official sources, it is a 49-year-old patient from the San Martín Hospital who is admitted to intensive care but who was referred from the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit. He arrived with the diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma and had an intervention (autologous bone marrow transplant) scheduled on February 24. Now the authorities are analyzing how the contagion occurred, especially since it was reported that the patient had been hospitalized in mid-February in another ward of the same hospital.
The patient who was admitted to the hospital, as specified, at the beginning of March, raised a temperature and later his respiratory condition worsened. They indicated that he evolved “torpidly”, for which he had to enter the Intensive Care Unit on March 10, where mechanical ventilation was required a day later.
Just this Monday it was confirmed that, after several studies, the result for Legionella pneumophila was positive, which was carried out by FilmArray test in the same Polyclinic. While the result of the urine antigen test for Legionella from the ANLIS-Malbrán National Reference Laboratory is awaited.
From the San Martín Hospital they sent an “epidemiological statement” for a case of legionellosis “with possible association with health care.” In this sense, they indicated that “all personnel are urged to adopt prevention measures and alarm guidelines for prompt notification of symptoms and surveillance of cases.”
On the other hand, the authorities of that medical center reported that different actions were carried out:
– Creation of an interdisciplinary committee made up of: Management, Infectology, Infection Control and Epidemiology HIGA San Martin.
– Closure of UTMO and transfer of patients on 3/13 with closure of the refrigeration system
– Epidemiological investigation of the case and its possible sources in conjunction with the Health Region
– Tour of facilities and taking of water samples at different supply points of the pavilions where the case was in charge of the Tomás Perón Biological Institute on 3/14.
– The use of mains water was restricted and water drums were purchased for personal and patient consumption and sanitation in the wards under study.
– Active surveillance of patients and people exposed in the research wards was established (during the incubation period from exposure -14 days-).
– The retrospective search for hospitalized patients who match the definition of a suspected case is in progress through hospital medical records.
– The preventive disinfection of tanks and pipes of the pavilions and corresponding chlorination is in process.
last year’s outbreak
It should be remembered that in September 2022 there was an outbreak of bilateral pneumonia and it was determined that it was caused by the bacteria called Legionella, which usually appears in freshwater, in lakes and streams. But it also appears in building water systems, and can spread through sinks, hot tubs, hot water tanks and water heaters, car windshield washer reservoirs, complex plumbing systems, and in cooling towers, water-containing structures, and a fan as part of the centralized air-cooling system in buildings.
On that occasion, the disease had been detected in the Luz Médica de San Miguel de Tucumán private sanatorium. The first symptoms appeared between August 18 and 22. As reported by the local Ministry of Health, the zero case was registered under the name of Margarita Zerda, 70 years old. The woman entered the sanatorium to undergo gallbladder surgery. Upon being admitted, she contracted the disease and died on Thursday, September 1.
Such was the repercussion of the case that the World Health Organization (WHO) controlled the situation that occurred in the aforementioned Tucuman hospital, where there were ten people sick with this strange pneumonia, four of whom died.
