Two People in Yorkville Bldg. Contracted Legionnaires Disease, Prompting Health Dept. Probe

Two people who are residents of the Cheroke Apartments in Yorkville tested positive for Legionnaires disease within the past 12 months prompting a health department investigation after the second person was diagnosed.

A deadly outbreak of the respiratory illness in Harlem last summer killed seven people.

The apartment complex is between E. 77th and E. 78th Streets and between York Ave. and Cheroke Place.

“The NYC Health Department is evaluating buildings within The Cherokee complex after two residents were diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease within a 12-month period,” an NYC Health Department spokesperson said. “The NYC Health Department is working with the buildings’ management to test the water to confirm whether or not Legionella bacteria is present in the buildings’ plumbing system.”

Legionnaire’s disease, which is based on the Legionella bacteria and creates flu-like symptoms, spreads through infected water vapor. It is not contagious between people.

According to the news site Patch New York, residents were advised to switch from showers to bath and avoid inhaling water vapors, one resident told the news outlet.

The building owner is required to hire a qualified water system management team to analyze the water system and carry out treatment if needed. The test of the hot water supply could take two weeks. In the meantime, the health department met with residents of the Cherokee on January 21, Patch reported.

”When we are conducting a building evaluation like this one, there is no risk to the surrounding community,” the health department spokesperson told Patch. “We are in close communication with the building residents and owners to ensure everyone has accurate information to keep them safe.”

Many people who are exposed to Legionella avoid contracting the disease, although the mortality rate can be as high as 10 percent for those that do. It thrives in the kind of warm water found in the base of cooling towers that are situated on top of buildings, although it can also be found in humidifiers and hot-water tanks. The disease cannot percolate in window-unit ACs, however.

During last year’s deadly outbreak, the disease was discovered in various cooling towers spread across ten buildings, many of which had not been tested for over a year. As Gothamist reported at the time, the city’s health department lost nearly a third of its hired inspectors prior to the outbreak, despite a funding boost. The hiring of inspectors has since reportedly ramped up.

The outbreak last summer which lasted from July 25 to August 29, sickened over 100 people across 12 buildings. It led the City Council to pass a bill that would strengthen citywide testing requirements for the disease.

As reported by Straus at the time, the bill—known as Intro 1390-A—passed by a vote of 45 to 2. It mandates that building owners test cooling towers on a monthly basis as long as the cooling towers are in use, as well as require them to conduct “biocide treatment [for] each cooling tower during warm weather when there is an increased risk of legionella growth.”