14 Now Sick In Washington Heights Legionnaires' Outbreak: City

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Several more cases of Legionnaires' Disease have been reported in Washington Heights in the neighborhood's second major outbreak of the disease this year.

Fourteen cases of Legionnaires' Disease have now been reported in the uptown neighborhood since the end of September, city health officials said. At least one person has been discharged from the hospital and nobody has died during the outbreak, officials said.

City officials initially announced last week that eight people fell ill with the disease in an area vaguely described as "lower Washington Heights." An outbreak of the disease sickened 27 people, killing one, during the summer this year.

"The Health Department has identified a second cluster this season of Legionnaires disease in the Lower Washington Heights area and we are taking aggressive steps to ensure the safety of residents," Acting Health Department Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said last week in a statement.

The summer outbreak — which was also reported in "lower Washington Heights" — was traced back to The Sugar Hill Project, a high-rise building on St. Nicholas Avenue near West 155th Street. Officials ordered The Sugar Hill Project to clean and disinfect its cooling systems due to the building's proximity to the new outbreak.

When asked, city health officials could not confirm or deny whether the Sugar Hill Project may be the source of the most recent outbreak.

Three people fell ill with Legionnaires' Disease at the Saint Nicholas Houses — a 13-building development located between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell boulevards and West 127th and West 131st streets — in September. Following the announcement of the newest outbreak in Washington Heights, Congressman Adriano Espaillat called for immediate testing of every New York City Housing Authority building in New York

“I am outraged at the lack of priority this health crisis has garnered from New York City and demand that the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) immediately test ALL water cooling units belonging to all residential property units – public and private – in the five boroughs for the presence of Legionella bacteria, and if it is found to immediately mitigate and treat to prevent the spread of Legionnaires’ disease," Espaillat said last week in a statement.

Legionnaires' symptoms include fever, cough, chills, muscle aches, headache, fatigue, loss of appetite, confusion and diarrhea and generally surface two to 10 days after contact with the bacteria Legionella. Common culprits in the spread of the Legionella bacteria include cooling towers, whirlpool spas, hot tubs, humidifiers, hot water tanks, and evaporative condensers of large air-conditioning systems, the Department of Health said. The city sees an average of 200 to 500 cases of Legionnaires' Disease each year, health officials said.

The disease cannot be spread from one person to another, the Department of Health said in a statement.

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