A fifth person has died in a Legionnaires' disease outbreak in New York City, health officials said Tuesday night. The New York City Health Department said it has confirmed the presence of the bacteria in 34 cooling towers in 33 buildings, all of which are being cleaned. Officials still haven't identified the source of the bacteria that has sickened more than six dozen people in the last month, the AP reports. No new patients have come forward with symptoms in the last 10 days, the department said in a news release. Eight people are still hospitalized and 56 others have spent time in but been discharged from hospitals in the Upper East Side outbreak, officials said.
The city is cleaning and disinfecting a total of 82 cooling towers in 80 buildings, they said. Legionnaires' disease, a form of pneumonia, is treatable but kills about 10% of patients, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's caused by Legionella bacteria, which grow in warm water and can spread in such places as hot tubs and building cooling equipment. People may contract the disease by inhaling contaminated water droplets, but it doesn't spread person-to-person. Inspections have shown that some of the tony neighborhood's fancy apartment buildings, private schools and renowned museums had traces of Legionella bacteria in their air-cooling equipment—despite new regulations that upped testing requirements just this spring, and despite a budget boost to hire more inspectors.
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