Acting NYC health commissioner defends city's communications on Legionnaires’ disease

Acting Health Commissioner Dr. Michelle Morse defended New York City’s efforts to get the word out about the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Central Harlem, saying Tuesday she and other staffers have deployed throughout the community to speak directly with residents.

“We have been really doing our best to hit the pavement in Central Harlem and get the word out to New Yorkers in the language they prefer in the location they prefer,” Morse said on WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show." “That includes me actually spending quite a bit of time last week in Central Harlem, flyering, talking to community members, doing a press conference, doing several media interviews.”

She added that a team of community health workers was also involved. Her comments came after multiple callers criticized the city for not doing enough to keep residents informed about how to protect themselves from Legionnaires’ disease, an extreme form of pneumonia that has been spreading in Harlem since late last month.

City Council spokesperson Julia Agos also called the city’s public health messaging around the current Legionnaires’ outbreak “inadequate” in a statement Monday and said councilmembers will look into it at an oversight hearing on the outbreak scheduled for next month.

Morse reiterated Tuesday that the city’s main message for New Yorkers living and working in the five ZIP codes where the outbreak is concentrated —10027, 10030, 10035, 10037 and 10039 — is that they should be “on high alert” for possible symptoms of the disease and immediately seek medical help if they pop up. Those include flu-like symptoms such as cough, fever, body aches, chills and trouble breathing.

So far, in the current outbreak, 90 people have been diagnosed with Legionnaires’, dozens have been hospitalized and three have died. City health officials have emphasized that Legionnaires’ can be effectively treated with antibiotics if it’s caught early.

Morse also responded to Harlem residents questioning why the city is not releasing the addresses of the 11 buildings whose water-cooling towers have screened positive for Legionella. This bacterium can cause Legionnaires’ disease when inhaled. The city has stated that the current outbreak is linked to a water-cooling tower that sprays mist contaminated with Legionella, although the health department has yet to confirm the specific source.

Morse said city health officials don’t want people to be more worried if they live in or near the buildings that screened positive or to have a “false sense of security” if they don’t. Rather, she said, she wants everyone in the five affected ZIP codes to be alert to possible Legionnaires' symptoms.

“The reason we have yet to release the building locations, again, is because of this concern that we’d be giving people a false sense of security before our investigation is really fully complete,” Morse said. “It’s not by any means us trying not to share important information.”

City law requires building owners to routinely test and treat water-cooling towers to control Legionella and requires them to submit to inspections by the city. But Gothamist has found those inspections have become far less frequent in recent years.

One "Brian Lehrer Show" caller on Tuesday asked if people walking around Harlem can protect themselves by wearing N95 masks — a measure the city has not recommended. Dr. Joaquin Morante, a pulmonary specialist at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, said masks would not be effective for the general public in this case.

“The mode of transmission for Legionella is not person to person, which is when masks are most effective,” Morante said.

While some callers wanted individual guidance on preventing Legionnaires’, Morante said the most effective way to address an outbreak is to identify the source and decontaminate the water supply.

Morse called the city’s investigation into the source of the outbreak “extensive.” The city health department says the 11 water-cooling towers that tested positive for Legionella in Harlem have already been remediated.

The latest city data on the outbreak suggests the number of new cases is trending downward, health department spokesperson Chantal Gomez said Monday.