A fifth person has died in a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in New York City, health officials said Tuesday night.
The New York City Health Department said it has confirmed the presence of the bacteria in 34 cooling towers in 33 buildings, all of which are being cleaned. Officials still haven’t identified the source of the bacteria that has sickened more than six dozen people in the last month.
No new patients have come forward with symptoms in the last 10 days, the department said in a news release.
Legionnaires’ disease, a form of pneumonia, is treatable but kills about 10% of patients, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s caused by Legionella bacteria, which grow in warm water and can spread in such places as hot tubs and building cooling equipment. People may contract the disease by inhaling contaminated water droplets, but it doesn’t spread person-to-person.
Eight people are still hospitalized and 56 others have spent time in but been discharged from hospitals in the Upper East Side outbreak, officials said.
The city is cleaning and disinfecting a total of 82 cooling towers in 80 buildings, they said.
Inspections have shown that some of the tony neighborhood’s fancy apartment buildings, private schools and renowned museums had traces of Legionella bacteria in their air-cooling equipment — despite new regulations that upped testing requirements just this spring, and despite a budget boost to hire more inspectors.
Some owners of buildings that tested positive have said they have worked to stay on top of any Legionella threat. The Guggenheim Museum, for instance, said in a statement that an outside company tests and treats the institution’s cooling tower every month.
The situation is avoidable and frustrating, said Jory Lange, a Texas attorney who represents over 50 people who were affected by an outbreak last year that killed seven people and sickened over 100 in New York’s Harlem neighborhood. He’s representing at least three patients who are recovering in the Upper East Side outbreak.
“There’s no excuse for this to keep happening,” Lange said. “New York already has the best and strongest regulations … and yet this still keeps happening.”
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Alister F. Martin said in a statement that the department’s quick action after the first two confirmed cases “saved lives.” Martin said the department will learn what happened from the ongoing investigation and update policies and procedures with the goal of preventing future outbreaks.
After the Harlem outbreak, city leaders authorized the Health Department in November to hire 23 more Legionella-focused water ecologists and supervisors, bringing the intended total to 56. The staff currently stands at 35, the department said in a statement Tuesday, noting that another 14 people are in a monthslong process of orientation, training and shadowing veteran inspectors. The department said it’s working to fill the final seven positions.
Nevertheless, the agency said it did nearly 1,600 cooling tower inspections in the first six months of the year, 35% more than during the same period in 2025.
