WATCH ABOVE: There is now an official outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at a Dartmouth apartment building. Friday the Nova Scotia Health Authority confirmed there are now three cases of the disease. Global’s Julia Wong reports.
HALIFAX – An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease has been declared at a Dartmouth apartment building.
On Friday, Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed, medical officer of health for the Central Zone of the Nova Scotia Health Authority, said three cases had now been confirmed at Alderney Manor. The first case was confirmed late Wednesday.
“We were always treating it as an outbreak,” she said. “This really allows us to confirm that our actions at the beginning were appropriate.”
Watson-Creed said all three residents are still in hospital. She adds that the number of suspected cases is fluctuating as more people come forward with symptoms.
“Those numbers are going to change very rapidly. We’re still looking at any pneumonia in the vicinity, any pneumonias in Dartmouth suspiciously. As those come forward to us, we’re looking at any of them to see if they could be related,” she said.
She said that no source of legionella has been confirmed inside the building but public health officials are taking steps to try and tackle the bacteria.
“We’re going to go ahead and do some treatment measures in the building with the hot water system in particular to see if we can flush it and super chlorinate it and see if we can reduce the risk,” she said, adding that legionella does not thrive in hot environments and is susceptible to chlorine.
Surveillance team detected the “unusual” cluster
Watson-Creed said public health officials may not have had a head start on their investigation if it had not been for the Serious Outcome Surveillance Network, also known as SOS.
The network conducts surveillance for patients hospitalized with vaccine preventable infections.
Dr. Shelly McNeil, the lead investigator with SOS, said researchers normally keep an eye out for influenza and community-acquired pneumonia.
“Our nurses are trained to look for unusual patterns of infection that might suggest something unusual going on from a public health perspective,” she said.
Recently, one surveillance monitor who evaluates patients admitted to the QE2 and Dartmouth General Hospital noticed something unusual.
“What she noticed in this case is there were several patients who had the same address and she wondering if perhaps that could be associated with an outbreak of some sort,” McNeil said.
“She thought that was unusual and suggested perhaps maybe there was an infection being transmitted between people or there was an environmental source of infection.”
SOS does not test or diagnose Legionnaires’ disease; it alerted public health officials, which ultimately led to the investigation.
“It was fortuitous that we happened to be there and happened to be watching for it, and my research associate was astute enough to recognize the pattern,” McNeil said.
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