Outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Sydney triggers panic, health warning

Australian health authorities have warned hundreds of thousands of people in Sydney, Australia to monitor for symptoms after a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, local media reported on Thursday.

At least six people have been hospitalized with symptoms of the potentially deadly disease as health authorities have yet to trace the source of the outbreak, local broadcaster SBS News reported.

Authorities said that each person who developed Legionnaires’ disease had spent time in Sydney’s busy city center over the past three weeks.

The New South Wales Health Ministry has advised people who have been in the area in the past 10 days — numbering many hundreds of thousands — to be on the lookout for symptoms of the disease, including fever, chills, cough and shortness of breath.

Legionnaires’ disease can lead to severe chest infections, such as pneumonia.

Legionnaires’ disease symptoms

Doctors believe that symptoms can develop up to 10 days after exposure to the bacteria, often caused by contaminated water particles in cooling systems entering the air and being breathed in.

Elderly people and those with underlying lung or other serious health conditions are most at risk.

Authorities are reviewing maintenance records for cooling towers to prioritize inspections and sampling to trace the source of the disease, which is not spread from person to person but has a fatality rate of about 10%.

Over 100 people developed the disease after an outbreak from cooling towers in Melbourne in August.

Two people, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 90s, died.