NYC Finds 56 UES Buildings With Live Legionella as Outbreak Sickens 89 and Kills 5
Updated
Updated · Gothamist · Jul 27
NYC Finds 56 UES Buildings With Live Legionella as Outbreak Sickens 89 and Kills 5
3 articles · Updated · Gothamist · Jul 27
Summary
Culture tests identified 56 Upper East Side buildings with active Legionella in cooling towers before the outbreak, narrowing the search for the source of 89 illnesses and five deaths.
Those results came after the city sampled all cooling towers in the three affected ZIP codes; culture testing takes weeks but is more accurate than earlier PCR screening that flagged 76 buildings with live or dead bacteria.
Health officials will now compare bacteria from the towers with patient samples to pinpoint the original source, though the department said the likely source has already been eliminated after owners drained towers and no new diagnoses have appeared.
Twelve buildings are still awaiting culture results, partly because the city could test only a limited number of towers each day and labs handling the cultures have constrained capacity.
The findings also spotlight weak oversight: only 56% of city cooling towers had been inspected in the past year by June 17, and among the 56 positive towers just 52% had been inspected.