Downtown Atlanta hotel closes after 3 guests test positive for Legionnaires’ disease
Source: https://www.ajc.com, July 16, 2019
By: Chelsea Prince
A downtown Atlanta hotel has closed its doors while officials test for a rare, and sometimes deadly, form of pneumonia.
Three people who stayed at the Sheraton Atlanta on Courtland Street tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease, which is contracted by breathing in mist or swallowing water containing bacteria. Public health officials have not yet confirmed if the guests contracted the disease during their stay, a spokeswoman for the hotel said.
Sheraton was working Monday to relocate about 450 guests to nearby hotels. Peduzzi said they were also reaching out to guests with upcoming reservations to help them find other accommodations. Guests whose reservations are canceled will receive a full refund, he said.
“There currently are three confirmed cases of Legionnaires’ disease,” Nancy Nydam, a spokeswoman for the state health department, said in an email. “Contact investigations with other people who stayed at the hotel are ongoing. Legionnaires’ is a reportable condition in Georgia, so by law cases must be reported to public health.”
About one in 10 people who come down with Legionnaires’ disease die due to complications from their illness, the CDC said. One in four who contract the disease while staying in a healthcare facility will die, as their immune systems are already compromised.
It is more common for people to get Legionnaires’ through breathing in small droplets of water in the air than by drinking contaminated water, according to the CDC.
The disease got its name after a 1976 outbreak at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. Of the more than 2,000 members who attended the convention of the veterans organization, 182 came down with a serious, atypical form of pneumonia and 29 died.
Theirs were the first recorded cases of Legionnaires’ disease, also called Pontiac Fever after a 1968 outbreak in Pontiac, Michigan. It wasn’t until after the 1976 outbreak that health officials were able to determine the same kind of bacteria caused both diseases, according to the CDC.
