Overview
- The New York City Health Department confirmed late Thursday that five people in Melrose and Morrisania (ZIPs 10451 and 10456) have been diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease and one person has died.
- City water ecologists sampled every cooling tower in the two ZIP codes and sent specimens to the NYC Public Health Laboratory; results are pending and any tower that tests positive will be ordered cleaned and disinfected.
- Officials have launched neighborhood outreach including multilingual flyers, door‑to‑door canvassing and weekend town halls to urge residents who develop fever, cough or difficulty breathing to seek immediate care.
- Legionnaires’ is a treatable form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria in contaminated water droplets, it is not spread person‑to‑person, and people over 50, smokers and the immunocompromised face higher risk of severe illness.
- The cluster is the city’s second this summer after the July Upper East Side outbreak and follows August state and city moves to tighten cooling‑tower inspections, a sequence that could lead to faster testing, more remediation orders and expanded oversight.