As New Brunswick Public Health officials continue to investigate a legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Moncton, a university professor and a survivor of the illness are echoing calls for a provincial-led registry of cooling towers.
Legionnaires’ disease is caused by bacteria called legionella that can be found in natural bodies of water, such as ponds, lakes and streams, as well as in constructed water systems, such as air conditioners, cooling towers, whirlpools, spas and decorative fountains.
In cooling towers, the bacteria can be dispersed into the air and then carried by the wind for kilometres. It can not be transmitted from person to person.
“When the conditions are right, bacteria can grow, and then if there are mists that are created that allow that bacteria to go into the air and spread, people can breathe it in,” Dr. Yves Léger, the regional medical officer of health, told Global News on Sunday.
Riverview resident Ken Martin says he contracted legionellosis back in 2018, a year before an outbreak occurred, and was placed on life support after being admitted to the Moncton city hospital.
“It was a very surreal experience and it was a very long recovery,” he says.
“To this day, I have no idea where I caught legionella.”
The province declared the outbreak on Friday, after six cases were reported in two weeks.
“My sympathy goes to those people and their loved ones,” Martin says.
Calls for cooling tower registry, maintenance laws
There were calls for a cooling tower registry after the 2019 outbreak, both suggested by Dr. Léger and Moncton Mayor Dawn Arnold.
A City of Moncton spokesperson says they now take that information on new builds, but says a registry should be a provincial responsibility.
“Our position remains that, in order to have a consistent, coordinated approach, the province should have a registry of these cooling towers to be able to track when they’re cleaned, where they are in the event there’s an outbreak elsewhere,” says Austin Henderson, the city’s manager of strategic communications.
But with the second outbreak reported in the same region in the last three years, Sébastien Faucher, an associate professor at the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University is on alert. He’s studied legionella since 2007.
Cooling towers are a “very complex ecosystem,” he says.
“If we don’t do anything about it, then you’ll have more and more of those large outbreaks,” he says.
He says testing and maintenance requirements would help diminish the chance of legionella spreading.
Legislation requiring testing and maintenance of the systems is something Martin, the survivor, supports also.
“Whatever laws they bring in, they need to have teeth,” he says. “If they don’t have teeth, they’re useless.”
Seek medical attention if symptoms present
“In this region, typically we see a few cases occur late summer, early fall, which is not unusual,” Dr. Léger said Sunday. “But seeing such a high number of cases in such a short period of time is definitely unusual.”
He said his department is trying to find any common exposures among the six patients, and have sent samples in for testing to see whether the bacteria is the same type. That will indicate whether there is a single source for these infections.
Symptoms are similar to those of pneumonia, and can include fever, shortness of breath, new or worsening cough, headache and muscle ache.
People who are older, the immunocompromised, smokers, and people with diabetes are at a higher risk of serious illness.
Léger admitted the symptoms resemble those of COVID-19, so he stressed anyone who notices these symptoms should seek medical attention to find out what the reason is. He said his department is also sending a memo to health care providers to remind them to consider legionnaires’ disease in their diagnoses.
–With files from Rebecca Lau
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