NYC Legionnaires’ Outbreak Kills 5 and Sickens 85-Plus, Marking City’s 3rd Major Cluster in 12 Years
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 27
NYC Legionnaires’ Outbreak Kills 5 and Sickens 85-Plus, Marking City’s 3rd Major Cluster in 12 Years
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 27
Summary
Five deaths and more than 85 illnesses on Manhattan’s Upper East Side have made New York City the latest major U.S. hotspot for Legionnaires’ disease.
Legionella spreads when warm water—typically above 90 degrees—mixes with iron or corrosion, conditions that let the bacteria multiply in building water systems.
New York has now logged its third major Legionnaires’ outbreak in about a dozen years, after a seven-death Harlem cluster last year and the severe 2015 South Bronx outbreak.
Fifty years after the 1976 Philadelphia outbreak that first identified the disease, the latest cluster underscores how dense urban infrastructure can repeatedly sustain Legionella.