A hot tub at Summit Greens, a 55-and-older living community in suburban Orlando, FL, has been established as the source for Legionella bacteria that sickened two residents with Legionnaires’ disease, according to numerous news reports. Both victims were hospitalized but have since recovered and returned home.

The news about Summit Greens – located in Clermont – broke a day after news of four cases of Legionnaires’ disease were linked to two LA Fitness facilities in the greater Orlando area in Central Florida.

A third Summit Greens resident was hospitalized with Legionnaires’ symptoms but tested negative for the disease and passed away soon thereafter. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating and re-testing the individual’s urine sample to double-check the original findings.

A person usually catches Legionnaires’ disease – a serious type of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria – by inhaling microscopic water droplets in the form of mist or vapor.

Residents living in the Summit Greens community exhibiting pneumonia- or flu-like symptoms – especially anybody exhibiting those symptoms within two weeks of using the hot tub – should seek immediate medical attention.

Orange County Health Care Agency officials said they received positive test results for Legionella bacteria at the Foothill Ranch community spa, according to a report by the Orange County Register. The Foothill Ranch pool, wade pool, and spa in Lake Forest, CA, were temporarily closed May 12 after two adults were hospitalized with Legionnaires’ disease.

Testing confirmed the spa was the source of the bacteria. Warm water found in hot tubs can become contaminated if the tubs are not routinely and adequately cleaned and disinfected.

The Foothill Ranch Maintenance Corporation had hoped the facility would re-open in time for Memorial Day. However, it remains closed until testing returns a negative result. The latest round of testing will be conducted this week; results can take up to two weeks to be returned.

Jessica Good, a spokesperson for the OC Health Care Agency, said the facility had undergone numerous remediation efforts, based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those measures include the cleaning of all surfaces, new filter material, replacement and super-chlorination of the water and the addition of a UV/ozone device to the filtration system.

For the second time in less than two months, LA Fitness facilities in the Orlando, FL, area are at the center of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak investigation after four members at two clubs were confirmed to have contracted the disease. Three cases are connected to the club at 4792 Kirkman Road; the other is linked to the club at 12700 S. Orange Blossom Trail.

It has yet to be determined if the infected individuals contracted the disease at the facilities. Health investigators were sent to both locations Friday for testing and found conditions favorable for the Legionella bacteria. Test results will be available in late June.

In April, three members at the LA Fitness club in Ocoee, a suburb of Orlando, contracted Legionnaires’ disease, but tests for Legionella at that facility were negative, according to Kent Donahue, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health in Orange County,

A person catches Legionnaires’ disease – a serious type of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria – by inhaling microscopic water droplets in the form of mist or vapor. The Legionella bacteria are found primarily in human-made, warm-water environments.

The outbreak is the third experienced by an LA Fitness facility in the past seven months. In December 2016, two members of a facility in Long Island, NY, were infected with Legionnaires’ disease, and officials shut down the pool, pool area, and spa after water samples tested positive for the Legionella bacteria. One of the infected members filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against the club in March.

A pair of recent visitors contracted Legionnaires’ disease while staying at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the Southern Nevada Health District announced. The two guests stayed at the hotel separately in March and April.

The Caesar Entertainment group said tests made to the hotel’s hot-water system confirmed the presence of the Legionella bacteria in one of the hotel’s two towers. Testing was conducted in late May.

Remediation efforts continue at the hotel, including disinfecting the system with chlorine. Guests in rooms served by the infected system were relocated, and those rooms will not be occupied until the system is flushed, according to Mark Bergtholdt, the district’s environmental health supervisor.

The hotel is “assisting in the investigation and taking steps to provide information to past and current guests of the property,” the health district wrote in its news release. Individuals who stayed at the hotel more than two weeks ago and have yet to develop symptoms are no longer at risk. Guests exhibiting symptoms within 14 days of their stay should seek medical attention.

“Poisoned Water,” a one-hour documentary that looks at the 2015 outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Flint, MI, debuts at 9 EDT tonight on the PBS science series “Nova.”

In April 2014, city and state officials switched Flint’s water supply from Detroit’s water system to the Flint River, and in so doing, decided against treating the river water with phosphates, an anti-corrosive agent. That decision helped produce a situation in which lead leached into the water.

In March of this year, Virginia Tech Professor Marc Edwards released an unpublished study to CNN that directly linked the Flint water crisis to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in which 12 people died and another 90 were sickened. Edwards is the independent researcher who found lead in Flint’s drinking water in 2015, at the same time officials were denying that lead was leaching into the water supply.

During the re-creation of the crisis in his engineering lab, Edwards proved that the corrosive water created an environment in which the Legionella bacteria could flourish. “What we discovered was that when the Flint River water went into the system, it released a lot of iron and removed the disinfectant from the water,” Edwards told CNN. “And in combination, those two factors – the iron as a nutrient and the disinfectant disappearing – allowed Legionella to thrive in buildings where it could not do so previously.”

A person usually catches Legionnaires’ disease – a serious type of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria – by inhaling microscopic water droplets in the form of mist or vapor. The Flint outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease – one of the largest in U.S. history – is thought to be the first to originate in a drinking-water system.

Before Edwards released his results to CNN, there had never been a scientific link to the cause of the outbreak. Michigan officials allegedly stopped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from coming to Flint to investigate during the first wave of the outbreak. CDC officials, who must be “invited” to investigate, said the state insisted on handling it. The state investigators never found a cause.

“Not having the world’s foremost experts on Legionella come to Flint and diagnose the cause of this outbreak was really unfortunate,” Edwards said. “Not just from the perspective of samples not being collected, but probably the CDC could have forced action earlier that could have prevented further outbreaks and deaths that actually occurred in 2015.”

An inquiry into the crisis and a criminal investigation against state and city officials are ongoing.

A Lehigh County jury awarded $1.1 million to the estates of two men killed and three others sickened because of Legionnaires’ disease contracted from a tainted decorative fountain at a medical facility in suburban Allentown, PA, according to news reports.

The five victims – all men – took ill in 2013 after visits to the Integrated Health Campus, which houses numerous medical offices in South Whitehall Township. All five spent time near the fountain, which the Department of Health determined to be the source of the outbreak.

The jury awarded $750,000 to the estate of Otto A. Gruber and $125,000 to the estate of Russell Henry Peters, both of whom died from Legionnaires’ disease. The three other plaintiffs will receive $75,000 apiece, according to court records.

LAWSUITS FILED IN SARASOTA SPRINGS
A pair of negligence lawsuits were filed this month in connection with an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease last fall in Sarasota Springs, NY, according to news reports.

The son of Alice Johnson, an 86-year-old woman who died after contracting the Legionnaires’ disease while staying at the Wesley Health Care Center, has sued the nursing home, and Susan Gonino is suing the Saratoga Hospital after contracting the disease while in the hospital for surgery.

The outbreak first came to light in October, when three residents and one staff member at Wesley contracted the disease. Eighteen patients were infected, including Johnson and another who died.

Gonino’s case is the only case connected to the hospital.

COOLING TOWERS TO BLAME IN AUSTRALIA?
Cooling towers near the Cranbourne shopping center in Cranbourne, Victoria, Australia, are the likely source of an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that infected four people, ranging in age between 45 and 78, authorities in Victoria announced on Friday, May 12. All four required hospitalization.

Several cooling towers had water samples taken, and all were disinfected, but it could be up to 10 days before the results are known.

In April, health officials in the Melbourne Central Business District announced that five people were hospitalized with Legionnaires’ disease between the last week of March and the first week of April. Three workplaces and 89 cooling towers in the area were disinfected. The incidents are unrelated.

NO CASES REPORTED IN WATERTOWN, NY
Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, NY, has not experienced any reported cases of Legionnaires’ disease after May 8 testing indicated low levels of the Legionella bacteria in the hospital’s water system, according to news reports.

Remediation was performed, including the replacement of all valves and a daily flushing of the water lines, to eradicate the Legionella bacteria. The system was retested on Monday, May 15, and expedited results are expected soon.