By Evan Sernoffsky
San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Six inmates at San Quentin State Prison tested positive, and 51 others are showing symptoms, for Legionnaires’ disease after an outbreak of the potentially deadly respiratory illness hit the lock-up facility last week, prison officials announced Sunday.
Five of the inmates are being treated at hospitals outside the prison after tests confirmed the men had contracted the rare but severe type of bacterial pneumonia.
Meanwhile, water use is limited, prisoners are confined to their cells, meals are not being cooked at the prison, and inmate visiting has been suspended while health and prison officials work to manage the situation, said Dana Simas, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Doctors first confirmed that a prisoner had been made ill from the bacterium on Thursday, prompting prison officials to shut off water at the prison, which houses some 3,700 inmates and employs 1,800 people.
After consulting with public health experts familiar with Legionnaires’ on Friday, the prison began allowing inmates to use plumbed toilets while bottled water was brought in for drinking.
Legionnaires’ is spread by inhaling vapor from water contaminated with the bacteria. It is not spread from person-to-person contact.
The disease is named after a 1976 outbreak at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia that killed 34 people and made 221 others sick.
Inmates were being served boxed meals rather than hot meals from the prison kitchen to avoid exposure to steam from cooking.
Portable shower units were shipped into the prison Saturday while prison staff were coordinating ways to make sure all inmates can get a shower, Simas said.
San Quentin is a reception center of new inmates entering the California prison system and intake was temporarily halted while officials investigate the outbreak.
Inmate visiting and volunteer programs were also put on hold.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said an estimated 8,000 to 18,000 people are hospitalized every year with Legionnaires’ disease in the United States.
Most cases though happen in small clusters because the origin is typically a single water source.