New York residents anxious after 4th death from Legionnaires’ disease
New York — The largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City in at least three years has claimed its fourth victim, health officials said Saturday, reinforcing concerns among some residents and elected leaders that the city had not adequately prepared to combat the airborne illness.
The number of cases increased to 65, from 57 Friday, including 55 who had been hospitalized. Five cooling towers in the South Bronx have been found to be contaminated with legionella bacteria, which can sicken people when water droplets are released into the air from the towers.
The mounting toll has provoked a sense of anxiety on sidewalks and in shopping malls, and caused city health officials to consider how they might forestall a disease that has surged in recent years across the country. Elected officials are calling for legislation requiring that cooling towers be inspected for the bacteria. Some New York residents, fearful that their tap water was contaminated, have taken to drinking bottled water. Health investigators are tracing the steps of those who have been sickened in an effort to track the origins of the outbreak.
City officials assured New Yorkers on Saturday that the rising number of casualties reflect the incubation period of the disease, which can be as long as 10 days, rather than any spread of the contaminants. They said that the four people who died were all older and had pre-existing medical conditions, and that the tap water was safe.
“We expect the case count to rise over the next several days because it reflects what has happened in the past,” said Dr. Jay Varma, deputy commissioner for disease control at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “But we are also confident we have done the most intensive, immediate work to cut off any risk, so we anticipate the number of cases will first rise, then fall again.”
For residents and local leaders, the outbreak has raised questions about New York’s ability to defend itself against a disease whose prevalence in the city has more than tripled in the past 10 years. The number of cases of Legionnaires’ disease citywide rose to 225 in 2014, from 73 in 2004.
Most of the cases last year were in the Bronx and Brooklyn, the boroughs with the highest percentages of people living below the poverty level citywide, reflecting a tendency for the disease to be concentrated in poor areas.
That has fed a sense in New York that the city had not acted aggressively enough to address the risks of the disease. On Saturday, at Concourse Plaza, a strip mall east of Yankee Stadium, residents criticized the city for not regularly inspecting cooling towers and for not moving quickly enough to publicize cases of the disease.
Concourse Plaza is one of five buildings in an approximately 20-square-block area in the South Bronx where cooling towers tested positive for legionella bacteria. The others are a Verizon office building, Streamline Plastics Co., the Opera House Hotel, and Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center.
To determine where the cases originated, city health workers were asking infected patients where they worked, lived and tended to walk in the borough. Workers were flushing contaminated cooling towers with bleach and then fresh water. Four of the affected buildings had been decontaminated as of Saturday. Remediation efforts at Streamline Plastics Co. were continuing, city officials said.
“We are confident the investigation we’ve done has identified all the potential sources of the infection,” Varma said. But, he added, “To be perfectly honest, we don’t know what it is about the cooling towers or the bacteria or the environment that led to this specific outbreak.”
Why the cases of the disease have steadily increased is unclear. The illness cannot be spread from person to person and most often infects older people who suffer from pulmonary disease.
A study published last year by scientists working for the city’s health department found that the incidence of Legionnaires’ disease was highest in impoverished areas, as well as among people working in the transportation, repair or construction industries. The study, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, called for steps to be taken to address those findings.
“If environmental issues in high-poverty neighborhoods contribute to the disparity, greater effort may be warranted, for example, on the upkeep of cooling towers and water systems in the buildings in these areas,” it said.
Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president said he planned to introduce legislation in the City Council that would require regular inspections of cooling towers.
Varma said the proposal was “important to consider,” but cautioned that even sophisticated treatment systems have failed to stem the disease in other parts of the country.
Despite reassurances from the city, Diaz has also publicly raised concerns that water towers were contaminated, a fear that Pearl Jeffrey, 54, took to heart on Saturday. She was rushing to Concourse Plaza to buy bottled water. “I refuse to drink any of the water,” she said.
But her trip was short-lived, after she learned that the disease had spread to the plaza as well.
“I want to get in and I want to get out,” Jeffrey said.
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