News broke this weekend that the deaths of two people and the illness of a third have been linked to Legionnaires’ disease at a day spa in Richmond. The bacteria Legionella pneumophila continues its lethal growth and steady rise in cases nationwide, which the Centers for Disease and Control says began in 2000.
The pathogen spreads when victims inhale mist or small droplets of water in the air that contain legionella. Joseph McDade, the microbiologist who named the disease following an outbreak at an American Legion convention at a hotel in Philadelphia in summer 1976 that ultimately sickened more than 220 people and killed 34, said in a CDC video that he discovered the bacterium after being insulted at a holiday party that winter over why the agency was taking so long to find it.
The researchers who worked with McDade at the CDC through the Legionnaires’ discovery retold their experience of initial hypotheses reaching dead ends in a short video touting the organization’s frontline efforts during the first outbreak. From a massive line list of patient names and their possible exposures to infectious agents to negative cell cultures, the researchers hit many walls as they compiled a “thick” memorandum read by McDade, who was then at CDC as “one of the foot soldiers down in the trenches.”
McDade examined slides and conducted research. But it wasn’t until someone insulted him at a Christmas party that he double checked and first saw the pathogen that causes Legionnaires disease.
“He got an earful from some guest at the party,” Dr. David Fraser recounted.
“Some of the comments were less than complimentary about why [CDC] hadn’t found it,” McDade said.
“He was insulted by that and went back to the lab over Christmas and re-examined his guinea pig slides,” Fraser continued.
“All of a sudden what I saw was one microscopic field just teaming with bacteria,” McDade said.
“He found it and named it Legionella pneumophila,” Fraser said.
“It was really the combination of the people in the field and the people back in the laboratory, which has been the way that CDC has done it from the beginning. Maybe they’ll find a better way some time in the future but I don’t think so,” McDade said.
Legionnaires’ Disease presents as a severe lung infection and form of pneumonia that can result in hospitalization, yet is treatable with antibiotics. The incubation period following exposure typically is 2 to 14 days.
Contra Costa County Health officials encourage anyone who may have recently visited Zen Day Spa in Richmond to watch for symptoms of Legionnaires’ Disease. If they experience symptoms such as shortness of breath, fever, chills and cough, they are urged to seek immediate medical care. In the United States, the rate of reported cases of Legionnaires’ disease has grown by nearly nine times since 2000, according to the CDC.