Overview
- Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin confirmed late Thursday that a second person has died and that 13 cases have been confirmed in parts of Melrose and Morrisania in ZIP codes 10451 and 10456.
- City teams sampled 24 cooling towers and found Legionella DNA by PCR in 10 towers, including systems at Yankee Stadium and Lincoln Hospital, and officials ordered those towers drained, cleaned and disinfected.
- Preliminary PCR screening detects bacterial DNA but cannot show whether bacteria are alive or tied to infections, so culture testing that can confirm viable Legionella and link specific towers to cases is under way and may take up to about two weeks.
- The Health Department has stepped up community outreach and clinical alerts, saying staff have spoken with more than 1,700 residents, handed out over 4,000 pamphlets, contacted more than 140 organizations and urged anyone with flu-like symptoms in the area to see a provider right away.
- This cluster follows a larger Upper East Side outbreak this summer that killed 11 people and exposed gaps in tower inspections and owner self-testing, prompting tighter oversight and potential enforcement against noncompliant tower owners.