Mysterious Cases Of COVID-19 In Argentina

Mysterious Cases Of COVID-19 In Argentina


57 Sailors were infected with the COVID-19 after 35 days at sea.

Argentina is trying to unravel a medical mystery after 57 sailors were infected with the coronavirus after 35 days stumped, despite the entire crew testing negative before leaving port.

The Echizen Maru fishing trawler returned to port after a variety of its crew began exhibiting symptoms typical of COVID-19, the health ministry for the southern Tierra del Fuego province said Monday.

According to the ministry, 57 sailors, out of 61 crew members, were diagnosed with the virus after undergoing a replacement test.

However, all of the crew members had undergone 14 days of mandatory quarantine at a hotel within the city of Ushuaia. Prior to that, that they had negative results, the ministry said during a statement. Two of the opposite sailors have tested negative, and two others are awaiting test results, the province's emergency operations committee said.

Two sailors were hospitalized. "It's hard to work out how this crew was infected, considering that for 35 days, that that they had no contact with land which supplies were only brought in from the port of Ushuaia," said Alejandra Alfaro, the director of primary health care in Tierra del Fuego.

A team was examining "the chronology of symptoms within the crew to work out the chronology of contagion," she said. The head of the infectious diseases department at Ushuaia Regional Hospital, Leandro Ballatore, said he believed this is often a "case that escapes all description in publications because a time period this long has not been described anywhere."

"We cannot yet explain how the symptoms appeared," said Ballatore. The crew was placed in isolation onboard the ship and returned to the port of Ushuaia.

Argentina exceeded 100,000 total cases on Sunday, and therefore the price rose to 1,859. The majority of infections are within the Buenos Aires area.


Reference: India Today