New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio Says Legionnaire’s Outbreak Under Control

However, in a speech made Saturday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the outbreak “has been contained”, despite his acknowledgement that this outbreak was unprecedented in its nature.

All those who died were older patients and had pre-existing medical conditions.

It’s not uncommon for the city to report cases of Legionnaires’ Disease but the cases usually aren’t clustered in one location as they are in this latest outbreak. (Verizon commercial facility) – 118 Grand Concourse (New York City housing court) – 245 E. 161 St. (Bronx Hall of Justice) – 554 Grand Concourse (Post office building about to be decommissioned turning into a commercial building this month ) – 455 Southern Blvd.(Samuel Gompers High School) The disease is a form of pneumonia caused by breathing in mist contaminated with the Legionella bacteria. De Blasio, who has been battling criticism that the city didn’t act quickly enough, said yesterday, “I can say something very simply”. This effort is continuing to be done in close coordination with the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Seventy-six people have been treated and discharged of the 94 people who have been hospitalized in this outbreak.

Teams from both the city and the state scrambled to identify which buildings in the Bronx have the towers; prior to this outbreak, no city records were kept as to which buildings had cooling towers.

So far, the outbreak has sickened 108 people and 10 people have died in the South Bronx, CBS2’s Steve Langford reported.

The disease is spread by a bacteria, which has recently been discovered in the cooling towers of five buildings in the South Bronx area.

Dr. Howard Zucker, Commissioner of the State Department of Health, said “We are extending our deployment of health professionals to continue to assist in testing additional cooling tower systems in the Bronx”.

“I want New Yorkers to know that we are actively working to protect the public health”, Governor Cuomo said. Hospital staff said they followed strict guidelines on keep the cooling towers.

The state also sent 150 trained workers to test cooling towers – some in the affected zone, others elsewhere in the Bronx – a day after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state’s sudden, muscular intervention into the crisis by saying “we’re taking matters into our own hands”.

“We’ve never seen a situation like this before in New York City or, of course, these efforts would have been in place in advance”, the mayor said.

That assertion led to yet another chapter in the simmering feud between Cuomo and de Blasio.

Infections result from inhaling airborne droplets of contaminated water.