Marshall County public health officials are sharing how they handled last year’s Legionella outbreak, which resulted in 74 cases of Legionnaires’ disease, 36 hospitalizations, and two deaths. The first case was confirmed in early September, and state and local health officials connected the outbreak to cooling towers.
Lessons Learned
Sydney Grewell, director of Marshall County Public Health, discussed prevention measures, including the idea of requiring buildings with cooling towers to register them. “So that way, they’re regulated, they’re being maintained properly so something like this doesn’t happen,” Grewell said. “It would be great for something like that in Iowa to happen where businesses are held accountable for preventing something like a public health emergency or outbreak.”
Grewell also emphasized that outreach and legislation could help ensure such outbreaks do not occur again.
Original reporting: KCCI Des Moines — read the source article.
