Commercial buildings shuttered for weeks to stem the spread of the coronavirus could fuel another grisly lung infection: Legionnaires’ disease.
The downtown streets of Seattle during the outbreak of coronavirus, March 16, 2020. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson
If diagnosed early, Legionnaires’ disease poses less of a health risk than COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Most cases can be successfully cured with antibiotics, and Legionnaires cannot be spread from human to human contact. Those at risk include schools, gyms, factories, hotels, restaurants and outpatient surgical centers, Scanlon said. According to guidance updated Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the threat also applies to hot tubs, water fountains, sprinkler systems and millions of water cooling towers atop commercial buildings.
After a 2015 Legionnaires’ outbreak in which 10 New Yorkers died and at least 100 people became ill, the city began regulating water cooling towers, the suspected culprit. The same year, 12 deaths in Flint, Michigan were linked to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, after officials switched the city’s water source from a lake to a river without taking proper precautions.
In a paper for the International Society of Travel Medicine, Japanese doctors wrote of an 80-year-old man who died shortly after returning from a Nile cruise in March. He was infected with both legionella and coronavirus. Although doctors could not determine which he caught first, they noted that legionella has been linked to cruise ships, not hospitals.
“We can not relax, even with the manpower shortage,” Han said. “Do we have enough manpower to flush every facility? Of course, I’m concerned. People are eager to get their businesses running, but these are highly technical jobs and people need to know what they are doing.”
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