Alliance To Prevent Legionnaires’ Disease Statement On Napa Outbreak

The Alliance to Prevent Legionnaires’ Disease is issuing the following statement on the outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease in Napa County, California.

“The grim reality is that outbreaks only comprise a small number of Legionnaires’ Disease cases. According to the CDC, individual, sporadic cases comprise 96% of all Legionnaires’ diagnoses nationwide.

Much of the focus on remediation is on buildings and cooling towers but Legionnaires Disease comes from legionella bacteria which lives in public water systems and then travels from its source through distribution systems to homes and buildings. The bacteria lives in microscopic organisms that live in water. The only way for a building or a cooling tower to have the bacteria present is if it got there from the water source.

If we want to protect people from contracting Legionnaires’ Disease, we must consider implementing a comprehensive approach that brings together proven Legionella control and investigation practices. including addressing the management of water to eliminate Legionella bacteria from its source to its delivery to residents, providing public notification of water system disruptions that can elevate bacterial risks, offering residents guidance on how to mitigate risks following disruptions, and requiring public health agencies to offer in-home testing to any resident who contracts Legionnaires’ disease. Only then can we mitigate the vast majority of Legionnaires’ Disease cases that are sporadic, individual cases and prevent mass outbreaks as well.”

The Alliance to Prevent Legionnaires’ Disease is a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the occurrence of Legionnaires’ disease by promoting public research and education on the disease, and best practices and policy for its prevention. Visit preventlegionnaires.org for more information.