Legionnaire's Disease at the Epic Hotel

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THIS IS FROM THE MIAMI hERALD

 

 

A foreign visitor has died and at least two other people have become sick after staying at a downtown Miami luxury hotel, and health officials are blaming an unusual type of pneumonia called Legionnaire's Disease.

Guests at the Epic Hotel have been relocated to nearby hotels to prevent further contact with the water, according to the Miami-Dade County Health Department.

Doctors say there is no cause for widespread alarm because only three cases of the bacteria have surfaced in the last two months.

Little information has yet been released about the one patient killed: a foreigner who stayed at the hotel this fall.

The three cases, however, represent a tiny fraction of thousands who have come in contact with the hotel's water.

Studies show the disease is not easily transmitted through simple person-to-person contact because water droplets must enter a person's lungs. Instead, the culprit is typically a building ventilation system or water supply.