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Thursday, 28 March 2024

Reopening buildings face another risk: Legionnaires’ disease

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Reopening buildings face another risk: Legionnaires’ disease
Reopening buildings face another risk: Legionnaires’ disease

If you own a building laying dormant due to the coronavirus pandemic heed this warning: You may need to flush your water pipes, or risk a different deadly contagion altogether.

Matthew Larotonda reports.

From gyms to restaurants, skyscrapers and sports stadiums, all of these buildings left closed and empty by the pandemic have actually raised the danger of a totally different health risk that could rear its head as businesses reopen - a potentially lethal lung infection called Legionnaires' disease.

The problem is the water pipes.

Molly Scanlon is an environmental health scientist: (SOUNDBITE) (English) MOLLY SCANLON, CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE FOR THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, SAYING: "If the building has been shut down for more than 21 to 30 days or longer, that water becomes stagnant and by stagnant, the water that was delivered by the municipality had some form of a disinfectant in it, usually chlorine.

And, you know, when you drink your water, you may smell chlorine.

That goes away as it sits over time.

And what happens is when there's no disinfectant in the water, bacteria can amplify in the water system, and that can happen in any water system." So the old water needs to be removed.

Flush your pipes or risk infection.

That means air conditioning, hot tubs, showers, et cetera.

And if you have to service a potentially stagnant water system, Scanlon and other experts say wear gloves and a mask.

Legionnaires can't be transmitted from person to person, but does have a death rate of about 1 in 10, according to the CDC.

It's named for a deadly outbreak at an American Legion convention in the 1970s.

There's also another problem: It has symptoms very similar to COVID-19.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) MOLLY SCANLON, CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE FOR THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, SAYING: "You could imagine if a business opened up and multiple employees suddenly got sick at the same time.

Would people really be thinking of Legionnaire's disease or they'd be thinking of COVID-19?

And we wouldn't want that happening, and then not have the health care community even aware that they need to raise their awareness about what they might be diagnosing that's coming in their door." (SOUNDBITE) (English) MOLLY SCANLON, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENTIST LEADING A CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE FOR THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, SAYING: "It would be a shame to have an unintended consequence after surviving something like this and stumble into it.

And it's just 100% preventable if we would just get building owners to take this seriously, go back to business.

They'll probably be doing other safety checks they they're going to do, rely on this, and we just want to remind people that the building's water system is equally important to that safety check.

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