The bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease was found in the water supply of Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx — sparking extreme water restrictions at the 450-bed hospital, officials said Saturday.
The city is shipping in bottled drinking water for staffers and patients at the hospital on Pelham Parkway South in Morris Park, sources with knowledge of the case said.
City Health and Hospitals, which oversees Jacobi, confirmed that the bacteria was found through an “aggressive water monitoring program.”
“Our routine, required testing of our potable water supply found low levels of Legionella bacteria,” the agency said in a statement. “Per guidance from the New York State Department of Health, which regulates hospitals, we have taken steps to prevent any impact on our patients, staff or visitors.”
Besides drinking bottled water, patients are washing with packaged bath wipes as the hospital installs new water filters on showerheads.
The risk to patients is very low and there is no risk to the surrounding community, a Health and Hospitals spokesman said
Small outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease have been popping up in the Bronx and upper Manhattan over the past year, officials noted.
A person died of Legionnaires’ disease this month after an outbreak in Washington Heights, they said.
The patient, described as older than 50 but not further identified, had other risk factors that potentially compromised his or her health.
Washington Heights has seen 18 cases of the disease, the city Health Department says.
Legionnaires’ disease is a form of pneumonia caused by the legionella bacteria, which grows in warm water. It’s not transmitted from person to person, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
People usually contract the disease by breathing water vapor containing the bacteria, which can spread through plumbing systems.
Symptoms of the disease include fever, chills, muscle aches, headaches and coughing. People older than 50 account for most cases.
Between 200 and 500 Legionnaires’ cases are reported in New York City every year.
