New York City health officials said Monday a cluster of Legionnaires’ disease in Harlem now includes eight known cases — up from the three officials reported Friday.
No deaths have been linked to the outbreak, but the city Department of Health is urging New Yorkers — particularly those who live in the area — to stay vigilant for flu-like symptoms.
Legionnaires’ disease is a severe form of pneumonia that can develop when someone inhales water vapor contaminated with Legionella bacteria. Officials said the cases were reported in ZIP codes 10027, 10030, 10035 and 10037. The health department is inspecting cooling towers in the neighborhood and sending the water for testing.
“Community outbreaks, like the one that we are investigating currently, are often related to Legionella bacteria growing in cooling towers. Those are the big metal boxes on top of buildings that are used to do central air conditioning for large buildings,” said Dr. Celia Quinn, deputy commissioner of the health department’s Division of Disease Control.
“When the weather conditions are very hot and humid, that can help the bacteria to grow really rapidly,” she said.
But typical window ACs aren’t associated with legionella, Quinn said.
“I just want to make sure that people are still drinking water and using their air conditioning while it’s so hot this week,” she said.
Symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease typically appear two to 14 days after exposure and include fever, cough, muscle aches, shortness of breath, nausea, confusion and diarrhea, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The illness can be treated effectively with antibiotics if caught quickly, and most healthy people exposed to the bacteria don’t get sick.
Cases of the disease have risen steadily in the United States over the past two decades and peaked in 2018, CDC data shows. While rare, the illness can be serious, especially for older adults, people who smoke and those with weakened immune systems. New York City had a major outbreak of Legionnaires’ in 2015, when at least a dozen people died and more than 100 became sick.
The health department says the city often has somewhere between 200 to 700 cases of Legionnaires’ disease a year. But most of those cases are sporadic, Quinn said.
“We do pretty much constant monitoring,” Quinn said.
Officials are advising anyone in the affected ZIP codes who experiences possible Legionnaires’ symptoms to seek medical attention promptly.
This story has been updated with new information.
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