Legionnaires\u2019 disease: A personal story<\/a><\/p>\nLegionnaires\u2019 disease is a type of pneumonia. It is caused by bacteria (Legionella) that grow in warm water. Legionnaires\u2019 disease causes flu-like symptoms, and complications from the disease can be serious and even fatal, if left untreated.<\/p>\n
People who breathe in water vapor (mist) that contains Legionella bacteria can get sick.<\/p>\n
Most people who are exposed to the bacteria do not develop Legionnaires\u2019 disease. Illness usually occurs after high or repeated exposure, especially in people who are at increased risk.<\/p>\n
Legionnaires\u2019 disease is not contagious \u2014 you cannot get it from someone else. You cannot get Legionnaires\u2019 disease by drinking water, cooking, or using air conditioning. The bacteria that cause Legionnaires\u2019 disease does not spread through cooled air from air conditioners.<\/p>\n
You are at an increased risk for Legionnaires\u2019 disease if you:<\/p>\n
Are age 50 or older<\/p>\n
Smoke or vape<\/p>\n
Have chronic heart, lung, kidney, or liver disease or diabetes<\/p>\n
Have a weakened immune system due to a medical condition or medication<\/p>\n
When there are multiple people in a neighborhood with Legionnaires\u2019 disease (community cluster), common sources of exposure are cooling towers, hot tubs, and spray fountains.<\/p>\n
At other times, when there are multiple people with Legionnaires\u2019 disease who live in the same building (building cluster), the exposure is typically related to a building\u2019s plumbing system \u2014 most often the hot water system. When this happens, a building\u2019s residents can be exposed through water mist when they shower.<\/p>\n
If you like the reporting on Outbreak News Today, please consider a paid subscription for $5\/month or $30 a year. Help support the cause of this niche journalism. It is appreciated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NYC Health Department reports investigating a likely community cluster of Legionnaires’ disease in parts of Melrose and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":["post-352012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!Stid!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9928d831-bdba-4b51-80a3-28c94e678bd8_5000x5000.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n