Legionnaires' outbreak on NYC's Upper East Side tops 50 cases
What's new: Officials found Legionella in 31 cooling towers and ordered all affected buildings to disinfect them by Saturday.
A Legionnaires' disease outbreak linked to cooling towers on Manhattan's Upper East Side has sickened more than 50 people, sending fewer than 20 to hospitals, with no deaths reported so far. New York City's health department released a list of 31 buildings where tests found the bacteria that causes the severe form of pneumonia, though officials said the results do not prove those sites caused the outbreak. Nineteen buildings had completed cleaning and disinfection by Friday, and the rest were expected to finish by Saturday. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was among the buildings that tested positive. Officials said Legionnaires' spreads by inhaling contaminated water droplets and is not passed from person to person.