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A California resident died after drinking tap water contaminated with a deadly bacteria.
They were one of more than a dozen people who contracted Legionnaires’ disease linked to a failing water system in Napa County, about an hour northeast of San Francisco.
The outbreak occurred in July 2022, but was not revealed until today in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
CDC researchers traced the cluster of cases to dirty maintenance of several water plant cooling towers, which allowed bacteria to rot and run through pipes into people’s homes and faucets, affecting them. every time they took a sip of water.
Officials determined a “high risk” zone in the Napa area, which was defined as the area within a one-mile radius around a cluster of patient residences. Eight facilities were tested, seven of them in the high-risk radius.
Legionnaires’ disease is a serious type of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria, which typically thrives in large buildings where it grows in the water supply.
About 10 percent of people who become ill with Legionnaires’ disease will die from complications of their illness, but in people with weakened immune systems, the mortality rate can be as high as 30 percent.
It’s especially a problem in warm climates, like in Napa, where the summer weather reaches 80 degrees, where the heat helps them reproduce.
Napa County Public Health (NCPH) reported 14 confirmed cases of the illness, with three additional suspected cases.
Of the confirmed patients, 10 had to be admitted to intensive care units and five were connected to ventilators.
In total, sixteen of the cases and suspected cases were hospitalized and one died.
On July 11 and 12, 2022, NCPH received reports of three positive tests for the disease in Napa, the famous wine region.
Further investigation revealed 11 more confirmed and three suspected cases between July 11 and August 15, 2022; California typically sees one or two Legionnaires’ cases per year.
It was discovered that 14 patients lived in downtown Napa, two had visited downtown Napa, and one worked in the area.
Due to the close location and timing of the cases, the health agency, along with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the CDC, were able to focus their investigation on facilities in a small area.
Public health officials sequenced samples from the positive tests and water, which helped them link the outbreak to an environmental source.
Officials determined a “high risk” zone in the Napa area, which was defined as the area within a one-mile radius around a cluster of patient residences.
Eight facilities were tested, seven of which were in the high-risk radius.
Of those seven, five locations tested positive for Legionella and in all cases, the facilities’ cooling towers tested positive for the bacteria.
Inspections, searches and sampling of the facilities revealed a lack of proper maintenance in the cooling towers, and many of them had low or no levels of chlorine, which kills parasites, bacteria and viruses in water.
Officials said this was because the facility did not properly add the cleaner to the towers or there was a malfunction in the system, including clogged pipes that did not allow the cleaning solution to pass into the water tower.
After reviewing the findings, public health officials alerted local health care providers requesting that Legionella testing be performed on patients with pneumonia or similar symptoms.
A warning was also sent to the public, informing them of the situation and encouraging those with symptoms to seek care.
Officials also alerted facilities that had tested positive, including issuing a legal order to close a location that did not respond to officials.
Legionnaires’ disease can be transmitted through air conditioning units, showers and tap water, and the bacteria can trigger life-threatening pneumonia, a disease of which the United States is seeing an outbreak in children.
Symptoms include cough, shortness of breath, fever, muscle aches, headaches and chest pain.
To prevent bacteria from growing, health and safety guidelines say hot water supplies should be kept at a minimum of 122 degrees Fahrenheit, as bacteria cannot survive at this high temperature.
Cold water should be kept below 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
Doctors can diagnose Legionnaires’ disease by doing a urine or blood test to see if someone has Pontiac fever, a mild flu-like illness caused by exposure to Legionella bacteria. However, a negative test does not rule out the possibility that someone has the disease.
Once diagnosed, legionnaires’ disease requires treatment with antibiotics.
The latest data from the CDC shows that 8,900 cases of the disease were reported in 2019, but the true number is likely higher as many cases go undiagnosed.