Last week, on January 9th, Illinois state officials gathered for a hearing on the Legionnaires’ outbreak which occurred at the Quincy, Illinois Veterans Home and has resulted in the death of 13 people since August 2015. This hearing not only discussed the causes of this outbreak and what responses were taken in its aftermath, but also reviewed next steps forward to ensure that such an incident would not happen again. As a review, the first reported case of this outbreak at the veterans home arrived in late July 2015 with a second identified case arriving just a few weeks later.…
Officials have confirmed a third case of Legionnaires’ disease at Illinois Veterans’ Home in Quincy, IL. This confirmation comes less than a month after the opening of a new water system at the home. The status of the third patient is unknown. The Quincy home has experienced problems with Legionnaires’ disease in the past. Last year, 53 people contracted Legionnaires’ disease and 12 died in an outbreak, prompting officials to replace the home’s water system. The new water system cost nearly $5 million and was designed to combat the spread of bacteria by heating and chlorinating water in individual buildings…
The Quincy Veterans Home in Quincy, Illinois has unveiled a new water system designed to combat Legionnaires’ disease. An August 2015 outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at the home sickened 53 people and caused 12 deaths. (Read our blog post for more about this outbreak.) During the outbreak, residents drank bottled water and avoided showers as officials disinfected water tanks with chlorine and shut down potential sources of the bacteria. As investigators noted, the veterans’ home posed several challenges to officials as they sough to stop the spread of the disease. The sprawling, 200-acre campus contains 48 buildings, making efforts to identify and…