Legionnaires’ epidemic hits New York as officials rush to test water towers

For the past few days, Justine Kirby has been sporting an N95 mask every time she leaves her house for a walk in her quiet Upper East Side neighborhood.

As the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak grows to 46 cases, the city is closing apartment windows linked to contaminated water cooling towers.

A cluster of Legionnaires’ infections — a severe form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria — has raised alarm among residents in the community, who held a town hall at an Upper East Side church this week to raise a series of questions from the New York City Health Department.

“There’s a very serious level of concern in the community,” Kirby said. “I’m the type of person who likes to say the risk might be small, but I don’t see much negativity in taking these extra steps as long as (the cleanup and cleanup) isn’t done.”

As of Wednesday night, 22 sick people had been hospitalized, some of them in intensive care units, health officials said.

Legionnaires’ is caused by bacteria that grow in warm water, causing flu-like symptoms that can sometimes be fatal in untreated and immunocompromised individuals.

The current outbreak is caused by the cooling and multiplication of Legionella bacteria in the towers of large buildings, where people become infected when they breathe in the bacteria from the towers’ mist, said Dr. Wafa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

This week, the city announced its “draconian” plan to contain the outbreak, saying it will work to test all water coolers in the area. The department and the New York City mayor’s office did not respond to requests from the BBC this week about whether they had tested all water coolers.

Officials said they wanted to completely clean buildings and disinfect their cooling towers after one positive test, rather than waiting for more tests to confirm the presence of the bacteria. Several building owners have completed that process and others are starting, the health department said.

New York City Health Commissioner Alistair Martin said at a town hall on the Upper East Side this week that the city’s early detection is good news.

“We are looking at 160 cooling towers in this region, and we are not waiting,” he said. ABC News, External.

But New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin said she was concerned that not enough was being done.

She voiced her concerns at City Hall and wrote a letter to Martin saying, “The Department of Mental Health and Sanitation is very concerned about the owners actively disinfecting all cooling towers in the area that is still under investigation.”

Kirby said she was comforted by the city’s health department’s progress in the investigation.

But she added that she and the dozens of people who attended the town hall still have questions about how to best protect themselves. The city is telling people to watch for symptoms and seek medical attention, including testing, if they have symptoms.

“Because the risk is low, we don’t recommend that everyone cover up outdoors. But a well-fitting mask will protect you,” Kirby might reasonably say. “I think they can get into that.”

The Department of Health did not respond to a request from the BBC, despite local residents being advised to wear masks, but Dr El Sadr said wearing masks and closing windows could help those in the outbreak area.

Although the disease has plagued New York and other major cities around the world for decades, Dr. El-Sadr said climate change and rising temperatures could exacerbate Legionnaires’ outbreaks.

In the year In 2025 London, Ontario saw 105 Legionnaires’ deaths and five deaths. Last August, 114 people were infected and seven died in Harlem in upper Manhattan. The sources of the outbreak were identified as cooling towers at Harlem Hospital and the nearby city’s new Public Health Laboratory.

According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Upper East Side is home to the largest number of cooling towers, and by 2025, the city will have more than three times as many towers as tested in Harlem.