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Public health officials are investigating an outbreak in London of legionnaires’ disease, with 17 confirmed cases of the rare respiratory illness and three people reportedly being treated in hospital.
The Middlesex-London Health Unit says it was first notified about a cluster of cases last Wednesday, which appeared to be pneumonia. But after two days of investigation , the public health office declared an outbreak of legionella, the bacteria that causes legionnaires’ disease.
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Officials from the health unit were not immediately available to comment Wednesday morning on the outbreak, which CBC London reported was first detected from reports by employees of a single workplace in an investigation that has since expanded to a broader London neighbourhood after cases were confirmed in different locations.
Neither the workplace nor the neighbourhood has been publicly identified.
Legionnaires’s disease is a severe respiratory illness that can cause fever, chills and a dry cough.
Although not considered contagious in person-to-person transmission, legionella bacteria can be found in warm water sources such as air-conditioning systems, hot water tanks and heaters and plumbing systems.
Infection can be transmitted by the bacteria being aerosolized by fans or wind, with people breathing it in.
The health unit says there is no “broad risk to the public,” and that the bacteria is not in London’s drinking water system.
The agency will work with Public Health Ontario to develop a sampling plan to try to identify the source of the bacteria, it says.
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