The Quincy Veterans’ Home Multi-Year Legionnaires’ disease outbreak

Did Municipal Water Distribution System Deficiencies Contribute to a Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak in Quincy, IL?

This peer reviewed paper is the result of two years of investigation and details findings related to the cause of the 2015 Quincy Legionnaires’ disease (LD) outbreak. The paper compares these findings to the circumstances surrounding the 2014 Flint LD outbreak.
To minimize risk for future similar municipal water related outbreaks, municipal plant operators and public health officials should be aware of this papers’ findings and the direct impact significant variations in municipal water corrosion inhibitor and disinfectant residual can have on potential for community wide LD outbreaks as well as outbreaks at buildings housing immunocompromised individuals supplied by this water.

Background Information on US Legionella Policy

Quincy Veterans’ Home Multi-Year Outbreak – A case study in failed US Policy

Managing a Legionnaires’ outbreak

Article published in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News (4/10/19) on lessons learned from multi-year CDC failure to resolve Quincy Veterans Home outbreak.

Whitewash? Quincy Veterans’ Legionnaires’ disease report by Illinois Auditor ignores Expert reports’ findings and recommendations

LRM IDPH Public Comments On Illinois Plumbing Code By Tim Keane Legionella Risk Management 12 28 18

Supporting Documents

CDC Epi-Aid Report – Quincy 8/31/2015

CDC Epi-Aid Report – Quincy 8/8/2016

CDC Epi-Aid Report – Quincy 12/4/2017

CDC Epi-Aid Report – Quincy 2/4/2018

Restaurant outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease associated with a decorative fountain: an environmental and case-control study

CDC Sampling Procedure and Potential Sampling Sites. Protocol for collecting environmental samples for Legionella culture during a cluster or outbreak investigation or when cases of disease may be associated with a facility.

Tim Keane Presentation to National Academy of Sciences, Medicine and Engineering titled, “Successes and failures in cost effective public health policy related to control of Legionella in building water systems” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzwAfOlE0eo

Janet Stout Presentation at Emory University portion on sampling protocol of 1^st draw vs 2 minute flush “There are people out there doing this intentionally to get negative results” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEhBJSluFGQ&feature=youtu.be&t=37m30s

Janet Stout Presentation at Emory University entire presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEhBJSluFGQ&feature=youtu.be&t=35m00s