10 casualties due to Legionnaires’ disease Outbreak in South Bronx

The New York Daily News reported Friday that Marvin Montgomery’s attorney said he’s planning to file a lawsuit against the city Friday, and that in addition to being compensated for his injuries he wants to prevent future outbreaks.

Even though the outbreak is concentrated in the South Bronx, the city health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett, has ordered that all buildings citywide with cooling towers be inspected within weeks and, if necessary, decontaminated.

The bacteria exists naturally in water and moist soil and is found in creeks and ponds, hot water tanks and water in air conditioning cooling towers and evaporative condensers.

Meanwhile, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are preparing to go to the Bronx and look into the sitation. Symptoms include fevers, coughs, headaches and muscle aches.

The city sent the directive to roughly 3,200 buildings across the five boroughs. Seven more additional cases were reported in the area, making the total, as of today, to 108 individuals. The outbreak, which has been termed to be the largest in New York City’s history, has acted as an example as how little is known about the cooling towers for air-conditioning systems. A law to create a registry and regular inspection regimen is to be voted on Thursday at the City Council, de Blasio said. The city knows for sure that about 2,500 to have them already, and officials said the order will serve as an audit of other potential locations. Cuomo said there are more than 500 cases a year in New York state. The state can also be offering constructing managers and landlords with free Legionella testing by means of October.

“We’ve never seen an outbreak of Legionnaires like this in the city”, he told reporters.

All the cases are concentrated in the South Bronx, and the 10 people who died had pre-existing health conditions, such as weakened immune systems or lung infections, that exacerbated the Legionnaires’.

In addition, Dr. Claressa Lucas-of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease-comments, “This is a very underreported disease nationwide”.

The illness gets its name from a 1976 outbreak at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia when 34 people died.