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Cooling towers spraying mist contaminated with Legionella have caused Legionnaires’ Disease outbreaks and seem to be the culprit for this latest outbreak in Central Harlem, New York City. (Photo By: James Keivom\/NY Daily News via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
NY Daily News via Getty Images <\/p>\n
This is what can happen when bad stuff in mist gets, well, missed. A Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak in New York City has already left at least 70 people sick and three dead. All of these cases have been occurring in Central Harlem, which made the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene<\/a> suspect that something was amiss about the mist being emitted by the cooling towers in the area. Testing of 11 cooling towers there subsequently revealed the presence of Legionella pneumophila bacteria, which the NYC DOHMH believes<\/a> caused the outbreak.<\/p>\n Cooling Towers Seem To Be The Source of the Legionnaires\u2019 Disease Outbreak<\/p>\n As you can imagine, cooling towers normally should not have such dangerous bacteria in them. Cooling towers are those contraptions that you see on roofs that are part of the cooling systems for the buildings. These towers help disperse heat from the buildings into the air in the form of a vapor or mist.<\/p>\n Although such cooling towers are not exactly safe enough to lick, the mist that they emit shouldn\u2019t normally contain dangerous microbes. But when any water source remains too stagnant for too long with too little cleaning and too little disinfection, too many different nasty things can grow in it. Legionella bacteria is one of the more dangerous microbes that can enter and grow in such water.<\/p>\n Such contamination of a water source can essentially turn a cooling tower that\u2019s connected to that source into something akin to a Legionella spray bottle or aroma therapy dispenser. Therefore, if you inhale the resulting vapor or mist, you could end inhaling a whole lot of Legionella. From there the Legionella can get into your lungs and give you Legionnaire\u2019s disease, which could bring a legion of problems. But more on that later.<\/p>\n Inhaling contaminated water droplets is the typical way of getting infected with Legionella and not through person-to-person transmission. When someone has a legionellosis, which is a Legionella infection, you don\u2019t have to treat them as if they are radioactive. But you do want to find what water source around the person might be harboring Legionella like a water fountain, swimming pool, air conditioning system, sauna, hot spring or dental equipment and in turn got the person infected.<\/p>\n Legionella Can Cause Other Things Besides Legionnaires\u2019 Disease<\/p>\n What Legionella can do depends on where it goes on or in your body. If it comes into contact with any breaks in your skin such as wounds, the bacteria can result in a skin or soft tissue infection, otherwise known as cellulitis if you want to sound all medical. If Legionella somehow gets into your sinuses, joints or bloodstream, it can cause infections in such locations as well. Legionella in your bloodstream can end up in your heart, causing bad stuff like endocarditis, myocarditis or pericarditis.<\/p>\n If Legionella goes up your nose or into your mouth it could find its way into your respiratory tract. That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that you will develop full-blown Legionnaires\u2019 disease. You could end up with a much milder respiratory infection\u2014 with mild being a relative term since flu-like symptoms aren\u2019t exactly a walk in the park. These can include fevers, chills, headaches, muscle pains, fatigue, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. This syndrome is known as Pontiac Fever, not because it makes you desire that now-defunct car, but because the first recognition of this syndrome was in 1968 when an outbreak occurred in Pontiac, Michigan. While Pontiac Fever can put you through a period of significant unpleasantness, unlike Legionnaires\u2019 disease it should resolve on its own without needing any specific treatment.<\/p>\n How Legionnaires\u2019 Disease Got Its Name<\/p>\n While the aforementioned problems with Legionella may range from not good to very, very bad, getting Legionnaires\u2019 Disease tends to shade more on the bad to really, really bad side. Legionnaires\u2019 Disease bears its name not because it has anything to do with becoming a Legionnaire, as I have written before for Forbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n This disease and the bacteria causing the disease got their names because they were essentially discovered from a mysterious outbreak occurring at an American Legion meeting held in a hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back in 1976. At that meeting, a number of the American Legion meeting attendees, known as Legionnaires, there came down with a mysterious disease, characterized by an atypical pneumonia with a fairly high death rate. This made headlines and a bit of a panic at the time as people were like \u201cwhat\u2019s going on\u201d for a while. It sent disease detectives scrambling for a cause.<\/p>\n Eventually, scientists identified the causative bacteria in January 1977 and subsequently named it Legionella due to the meeting. This bacteria was found to be multiplying in, guess what, the cooling tower of the hotel\u2019s air conditioning system. The moist air circulated by the air conditioning system in turn had spread it throughout different parts of the hotel, infecting Legionnaires, many of whom were older and particularly susceptible to very bad outcomes. And that\u2019s how the term Legionnaires\u2019 disease was born.<\/p>\n What Are The Symptoms Of Legionnaires\u2019 Disease<\/p>\n The symptoms of Legionnaires\u2019 Disease usually begin two to 10 days after the bacteria has gotten into your respiratory tract. You may start with a headache, muscle aches and a high fever, like 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) or higher. Respiratory symptoms like a cough, shortness of breath and chest pain can develop in the ensuing days. The cough may or may not be productive. It could even be bloody. You may also have gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Things could even get to the point where you have mental status changes like confusion.<\/p>\n