A woman has been hospitalized with Legionnaires’ disease, but health officials said it is not linked to an outbreak in Woodstock in August.
The woman, from Chicago, first complained of flu-like symptoms at the end of September and was hospitalized at Memorial Medical Center in Woodstock. She is listed in good condition.
It was confirmed Monday that she had contracted Legionnaires’ disease, a bacterial infection that is not contagious, but spreads when contaminated water is vaporized and sprayed into the air and inhaled.
Health officials have not yet discovered how the woman contracted the potentially fatal disease.
As a precautionary measure, hospital officials are offering bottled water to patients with weakened conditions and to any other patients or employees who request it, said Bill Clow, hospital spokesman.
However, there is no indication that drinking water is the source of the bacteria, health officials said.
“Because the source is not known, we are taking extraordinary precautions because we are a hospital,” said Clow. “This is not anything to worry about. It is not contagious, and it is just one case.”
Even so, an outbreak of four confirmed and several suspected cases in Woodstock in August worried area residents. Health officials have traced the source of that outbreak to a cooling tower at a Woodstock retirement home, said Patrick McNulty, the county’s environmental health coordinator.
Laboratory tests did not officially confirm the cooling tower as the source of the outbreak, however it was the only common connection between the four confirmed cases.
“We did our tests and retested to try and definitively state where it was, but we do not have laboratory confirmation,” McNulty said. “But that was the only common source that we could locate.”
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Scientists believe that the bacteria breeds in pools of warm water. If contaminated water is then vaporized and sprayed into the air, people can inhale tiny particles of water containing the bacteria.