Overview
- Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin confirmed late Thursday that a second person has died and that there are at least 13 to 14 confirmed cases tied to parts of Melrose and Morrisania in ZIP codes 10451 and 10456.
- City teams tested about 24 cooling towers and found Legionella DNA in 10 on preliminary PCR screens, and those 10 towers have been drained, cleaned and disinfected by city order.
- Culture testing is now under way to see if live Legionella were present when samples were taken and to link any tower to the illnesses; that process can take up to two weeks and will determine next investigative steps.
- Officials have stepped up outreach and inspections, holding a town hall, canvassing neighborhoods, distributing thousands of pamphlets and urging anyone with flu-like symptoms who lives in or visited the zip codes to seek medical care immediately.
- The cluster follows a larger Upper East Side outbreak earlier this summer and revives local concerns about enforcement, private-owner maintenance of cooling systems, and higher vulnerability in the South Bronx because of underlying health disparities.