Legionnaires Illness Suspected In Nampa

Health officials are investigating two suspected cases of Legionnaires’ disease in Nampa, Idaho.

The patients, whose names officials will not release, are not related, but they do work together at entennial Elementary School. And they have the same doctor, who diagnosed the disease in both. Neither was hospitalized; the disease is treatable with the antibiotic erythromycin.

The diagnosis is tentative until tests come back confirming the illnesses.

Legionnaires’ disease is not known to be transmitted person to person.

The bacterium causing the disease, Legionella pneumophila, sets up in water, especially in pooled, stagnant sources. It is inhaled after becoming “aerosolized.”

Jim Owens, director of the Southwest District Health Department, said water samples have been taken from the school. Results are expected soon.

Owens said the disease is rare. The two possible cases are the first in Idaho this year. There were two cases in Idaho in all of 1994.