Air conditioners from window units to massive AC towers create conditions that let dangerous bacteria multiply and spread. Legionnaire's disease is spreading in New York City via large cooling units, sickening more than 100 people and killing five. Climate change is increasing prevalence and enabling spread into new regions, with Northeast and Midwest cities reporting more cases. Legionella was discovered in a Dearborn nursing home's water system. The disease spreads by inhaling contaminated droplets, causes fever, headache, and shortness of breath within days, can cause severe lung infection with about a 10 percent death rate, and kills about 5,000 people annually in the United States.
Air conditioners have been working overtime this hot summer, from those tiny window units to the massive AC towers that serve the tightly packed apartment buildings in major cities. And while they bring the relief of cool air, these contraptions also create the conditions for dangerous bacteria to multiply and spread. One particularly nasty bacteria-borne illness is currently spreading in New York City using those enormous cooling units as its vector: Legionnaire's disease.
If you don't live in New York City or the Northeast, you may never have heard of Legionnaire's, but this niche public health threat may not be niche for much longer. Climate change is helping to make Legionnaire's disease both more plentiful in the places where it already exists and creating the potential for it to move to new places where the population may not be accustomed to it.
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