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Your support makes all the difference.A second person has died of Legionnaires' disease following an outbreak in Cumbria, health officials said today.
A second person has died of Legionnaires' disease following an outbreak in Cumbria, health officials said today.
A woman aged in her 50s died overnight becoming the second victim of the disease which has already infected more than a hundred others.
Two of the 23 patients in intensive care had been giving doctors cause for concern.
It was not known whether the second victim of the disease was one of those two seriously ill.
An 88-year-old great-grandfather died a week ago after contracting the disease following months of failing health. Pensioner Richard Macaulay, who was known as Gerry, became the outbreak's first victim last Friday.
The bug, a form of pneumonia, is carried on tiny water droplets and is more dangerous among those with poor immune systems, such as the elderly or the very young.
So far, a total of 110 people have been confirmed as having caught the disease.
But the incubation period of the bug, which can as long as 10 days, means doctors are anticipating new cases to be admitted to hospital through the weekend.
Around 150 have needed hospital treatment for confirmed or suspected cases of the disease - making it the biggest outbreak in the UK for more than a decade.
All had been in or around the centre of Barrow-in-Furness during July.
Since the outbreak was uncovered 10 days ago, more than 1,250 people have been tested for the bug - equivalent to more than one in 60 people living in the Cumbrian port town.
A 30-year-old air conditioning system at the council-run Forum 28 arts centre was closed down last Thursday after being blamed as the source of the outbreak.
Tests on the system found traces of the Legionnella bacteria, which causes the disease, in the water treatment plant.
A council officer responsible for maintaining the system has been suspended pending the results of a police and Health and Safety Executive investigation.
Legionnaires' disease earned its name in 1976 after an outbreak of pneumonia at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia, from which 29 people died.
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