Elderly woman dies in hospital after contracting disease

An elderly woman who contracted legionnaires disease has died as Victorian authorities work to determine the source of the outbreak.

Transcript

00:00Well, sadly, a woman in her 90s has died as a result of this Legionnaire's outbreak.

00:08Authorities say that she became unwell quite quickly and she passed away on Friday.

00:14Case numbers have remained stable since yesterday, 60 confirmed cases, 10 suspected and a number

00:20of people in ICU.

00:21But today we found out a little bit more about this outbreak and what's being done to contain

00:27it.

00:28This is a highly unusual outbreak.

00:31Authorities believe that it could be due to the weather systems at play, the fact that

00:34it's been cold and windy, as well as a potentially high load of the Legionella bacteria coming

00:40from this tower, which they now believe to be the source.

00:43They've narrowed the source down to two suburbs, Laverton North and Deremet, to the west of

00:48the city.

00:49And they're thinking the culprit is a cooling tower within an industrial area that sits

00:53across those two suburbs.

00:55There are about 100 cooling towers in this area.

00:59Authorities say they've gotten to 41 of them.

01:02They're disinfecting these towers and they're testing them to see if they are that one source

01:07of the outbreak.

01:09Let's hear from Victoria's Chief Health Officer, Dr Claire Looker.

01:13I think there's a high probability that we have already visited the tower and disinfected

01:18it.

01:19And that is really driven by some pretty compelling epidemiology and crossover of where many of

01:25our cases have visited.

01:27I'm cautious.

01:28I obviously can't say that with certainty until we have test results back.

01:33But yes, confident that it is one of the ones we've visited.

01:37Now Legionnaires is not contagious.

01:38It can't be contracted person to person.

01:41It comes from water vapour, from dust particles.

01:46So it's not contagious, but authorities do want people to be on the lookout for symptoms

01:51nonetheless.

01:52They say it can present a lot like a chest infection and they're asking people to go

01:57to the doctor if they do feel like they've been in those areas and that they're feeling

02:02unwell.