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7 Deaths Now Linked to Legionnaires' Disease, City Says

By  Gwynne Hogan and Eddie Small | August 3, 2015 6:48pm | Updated on August 3, 2015 7:59pm

 City officials hosted a town hall meeting on Monday night hoping to calm worried South Bronx residents about the ballooning Legionnaires' disease outbreak.
City officials hosted a town hall meeting on Monday night hoping to calm worried South Bronx residents about the ballooning Legionnaires' disease outbreak.
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DNAinfo/Eddie Small

THE BRONX — Seven people have now died from Legionnaires' disease and 81 people have contracted the potentially fatal illness, city officials said Monday afternoon.

That's up from Sunday's count of four deaths and 71 reported cases. 

The additional deaths occurred prior to Sunday but were only recently reported to the city, officials said.

Residents, hoping for information about the lethal disease, lined up around the block to get into a town hall meeting Monday evening at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Many were turned away at the door.

At that meeting, the city's Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Travis Bassett urged residents to see a doctor if they showed any signs of the disease. Common symptoms of Legionnaires' include fever, cough, chills and muscle aches.

Officials at the meeting said they expect the number of cases to continue to climb because people can develop symptoms up to 10 days after initial exposure to the bacteria.

In total, 64 people have been hospitalized and 28 have since been discharged, city officials said. 

Officials attributed the rapid spread of the disease to five cooling towers on Bronx buildings, including Lincoln Hospital, Concourse Plaza, the Opera House Hotel, a Verizon office building and Streamline Plastic Co.

"We have found all of the cooling towers that we can, tested them all, treated them all," said Bassett, though the city may still launch a "wide-scale cleaning and disinfection program," according to fliers handed out at the meeting. 

The disease is transmitted by breathing in air that contains the legionella bacteria inside an affected building's air system or outside in open air in the vicinity of a contaminated cooling tower. It cannot be spread person-to-person.

The bacteria has been eradicated from the affected cooling towers, which officials will continue to check periodically, city officials said. The outbreak began July 10.