A recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at the Guildford Town Centre mall in Surrey, British Columbia indicates that cooling towers at the mall may be the source of the disease. This firm has represented numerous persons who contracted the disease from a cooling tower at the Opera House Hotel in the Bronx, New York. The dynamics of a cooling tower outbreak are interesting. The cooling tower works by warm air coming from inside the building passing over cooler water in the tower. Unfortunately, biofilm builds up at the base of the tower which contains the legionella bacteria causing Legionnaires’ disease.…
Three important pieces of evidence have been revealed through the media so far about the outbreak at the Sands Resort. The owner did not have a permit for the spa, there was legionella bacteria in numerous places through out the hotel and not just the spa, and numerous people who have been associated with the hotel who have contracted the disease. These facts are important for the following reasons. Permits are issued to make sure the spa holder complies with all regulatory requirements, e.g. the amount of chlorine in the spa. Finding legionella in two different water systems within the…
Jules Zacher has been retained by two persons who contend they have contracted Legionnaires disease at the Sands Resort in Hampton New Hampshire. An Order issued by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services indicates that the bacteria that causes the disease has been found in a hot tub, water heater, outdoor shower hose, and shower heads or sinks. The state Department of health has ordered the Sands Resort to notify all guests of the outbreak and to hire a consultant to remediate. Testing by the CDC indicates the legionella bacteria was found in shower heads or…
A preliminary report released yesterday suggests that a substantial upgrade of the Illinois Veterans Home at Quincy is the best route for resolving the Legionella issues there. This makeover, however, is estimated to cost as much as $278 million. The report describes a brand new residence with new plumbing and a well to serve as a separate water source. This report by the task forces which the governor had organized says the new facility would not only include Legionnaires’-resistant piping, but could be built to adapt to the changing needs of veterans moving forward. A final report is expected on May 1.…
For today’s post, we are once again going to take a bit of a step back from the news and examine some of the fundamentals of Legionella bacteria and Legionnaires’ disease. With that in mind, today’s post will be doing a review of the basics regarding how testing for Legionella is done. Traditionally, Legionella is found by a culture on a buffered charcoal yeast extract agar. One very common procedure for detecting Legionella in water is to concentrate the bacteria before inoculating it onto a charcoal yeast extract agar along with some agents like polymixin, GVPC, vancomycin, glycine, and cyclohexamide in order to suppress any…
We recently wrote about the progress of a bill in the Illinois legislature which would promote the prompt notification in the case of an outbreak of an infectious disease like Legionnaires’ disease. There is, however, another push within these legislative efforts to also promote more rigorous Legionella monitoring. In order to keep Legionnaire’s bacteria from spreading, lawmakers are proposing, in addition to the notification requirements we discussed previously, a new water management plan which would require state operated residence facilities to monitor their potable water systems for Legionella. According to Senator Mike Hastings, “(V)eterans at these homes deserve homes that…
A little over a month ago, we discussed a legislative attempt by State Representative Stephanie Kifowit from Oswego in regards to a proposed bill which would, “mandate prompt notification in the event of a future outbreak of an infectious disease” at every Illinois state Veterans home. It now appears as though there has been some traction on this proposed bill. As a review, the bill would require the notification within a day of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak within any Illinois veterans’ homes. The more recent news, then, is that the bill was approved by the Illinois State House’s veterans’ affairs…
The subject of using big data to try and model for future outcomes has been a popular one in relations to numerous types of fields. Yet in regards to this post, one application for modeling which seems particularly interesting is in regards to epidemiology and specifically Legionnaires’ disease. Now the primary paper I could find dates back to March of 2011 however it does draw some interesting conclusions. Essentially they attempt to model a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak using symptom-onset data from several specific outbreaks in order to estimate the beginning and end of the release of Legionella. The researchers are…
Over the past few weeks, we have included several articles regarding the Quincy, Illinois Veteran’s Home Legionnaire’s disease outbreak and the state’s attempts to not only find out exactly what happened, but to also take steps to try and ensure this kind of severe outbreak can never happen again. As of yesterday, this process of figuring out next steps took a new decisive turn by having Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration announce its plans to replace the residence halls at Quincy, Illinois veterans’ facility. The plan, which was revealed by the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs Director Erica Jeffries, was initially…
Due to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at the Island Walk gated community at the West Villages development in North Port last Friday, the Sarasota County Health Department will be testing the pool as well as the spa area of the facilities. The environmental health director for the Sarasota County Health Department Tom Higginbotham said the test kits had arrived on Tuesday and that the water from the hot tub along with both pools would be tested. Mr. Higginbotham also mentioned that the health department’s investigation should take around two days and that while the spa and two pools are the focus of the investigation,…