{"id":10237,"date":"2025-09-03T19:05:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T00:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=10237"},"modified":"2025-09-03T19:09:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T00:09:47","slug":"how-a-philadelphia-outbreak-of-legionnaires-disease-in-1976-led-to-modern-day-investigations-and-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/09\/03\/how-a-philadelphia-outbreak-of-legionnaires-disease-in-1976-led-to-modern-day-investigations-and-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Philadelphia outbreak of Legionnaires\u2019 disease in 1976 led to modern-day investigations and surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WHYY<\/a> Legionnaires\u2019 disease was named after a large outbreak in Philadelphia sickened hundreds of American Legion veterans in the summer of 1976.<\/strong> From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover?\u00a0Let us know!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cases of Legionnaires\u2019 disease have been generally on the rise<\/a> for the last 50 years, ever since the disease was first identified and named after an outbreak in Philadelphia during the summer of 1976.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York City just recently saw 114 cases<\/a>, which included 90 hospitalizations and seven deaths in the Central Harlem area. The responsible bacteria were found in air conditioning cooling towers at a local hospital and at a nearby construction site, and health officials have now declared this outbreak<\/a> as officially over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts say Legionella pneumophila, the bacteria that causes the illness, isn\u2019t any more dangerous today than it was back in 1976. But they warn that humans as hosts have perhaps become more susceptible to the disease over time. \u201cWe have dirtier air, we have a warming climate, we have people with chronic conditions,\u201d said Dr. Ren\u00e9 Najera, director of public health at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. \u201cAnd in a warming climate, that leads to more air conditioning, which leads to more exposures, right? So, it\u2019s this cycle that unfortunately is not just for Legionnaires\u2019, but for other bacteria and viruses, it\u2019s expanding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How a Philadelphia convention led to a mysterious illness among Pennsylvania veterans<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Finding the cause of Legionnaires\u2019 disease almost 50 years ago took a massive effort by scientists and public health officials. They banded together from all levels of government, launching one of the largest disease investigations in U.S. history to solve a medical mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer of 1976 was a time of many celebrations in Philadelphia. The city was entertaining visitors for the bicentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the country\u2019s birth.<\/p>\nW b wIawCsUalTPYmA Pc inE<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WHYY Legionnaires\u2019 disease was named after a large outbreak in Philadelphia sickened hundreds of American Legion veterans in the summer of 1976. From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover?\u00a0Let us know! Cases of Legionnaires\u2019 disease have been generally on the rise for the last 50 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coping-with-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10238,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10237\/revisions\/10238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}