Legionnaires outbreaks in 2019 and 2012 from same bacteria

Thursday, March 28, 2019 - 16:16

The Enterprise — Michael Koff 
Promenade Senior Living opened in December 2018.

GUILDERLAND — The Legionella bacteria that caused an outbreak in February, sickening two residents of the Promenade at University Place Assisted Living facility, killing one of them, has been found to match samples from a 2012 outbreak when the building, on Route 20 in Guilderland, was a Best Western Hotel.

The announcement was made on Wednesday in a joint release from the state and county health departments.

“Using specialized testing called whole genome sequencing, the state’s Wadsworth Laboratories has determined that the Legionella bacteria from clinical samples from the Facility match the Legionella bacteria cultured from water samples found in the existing internal plumbing system,” the release said.

Wadsworth also compared the recent samples with samples from the 2012 outbreak and found they were a “molecular match,” the release said. No cases of Legionnaires disease have been identified since the investigation.

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