SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- It's already been determined that cooling towers at Community General bred the bacteria that has sickened 12 individuals in the Onondaga Hill area.
Steps taken to flush the bacteria out have been unsuccessful, but the Health Department says they’re still working on it. In the meantime, cooling towers at the Van Duyne home and hospital have been tested and so far, so good. But the water system inside the building showed results of Legionella, the bacteria that caused all the trouble in the first place.
However, Gary Sauda of the Onondaga County Health Department says the bacteria found inside the Van Duyn water system is not to blame for the illnesses, nor is it unusual to find in a hospital water system.
The Onondaga County Department of health has confirmed a 12th case of Legionnaires' Disease they say caused by bacteria in the Community General Hospital cooling towers. They are also taking precautions at the neighboring Van Duyn nursing home. News 10 Now's Joleene Des Rosiers explains.
"Some of those samples were positive for Legionella Bacteria. Frankly the finding of the positive results in the water system in a facility of this nature is not totally unexpected. And based on our review of the data, it's not a major factor in the cluster cases that we have. So it's, at this point, not a major public health concern to us in terms of this particular outbreak," Sauda said.
For now, at risk patients are using bottled water. Those patients include the elderly, individuals with respiratory problems, transplant patients and chemotherapy patients. And if even one person shows pneumonia-like symptoms, tests will be done immediately.
"If a resident is ill and the illness happens during this time, of course. And if it involves any respiratory tract infection, of course. Tests would be done according to protocol," County Health Medical Director Quoc Nguyen says.
The health department says other cases in the Onondaga Hill area may be pending, born during the same period of exposure. It can take up to two weeks for symptoms to develop and that two week period has not yet expired.
Since the outbreak began earlier this month, one man diagnosed with the disease has died. However, the Health Department cannot say that his death is a result of Legionnaires' Disease.