An LA Fitness club
near the Hunter’s Creek neighborhood tests positive for the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease as another location still is under scrutiny.
An LA Fitness club near the Hunter’s Creek neighborhood tested positive for the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease while state health investigators await results from another club location.
The two LA Fitness clubs in the area have been under investigation since May by Florida Department of Health officials in Orange County after four separate cases of Legionnaires’ were traced back to the two gyms.
The club that tested positive is at 12700 S. Orange Blossom Trail, about 12 miles south of downtown Orlando.
Epidemiologists are still waiting for results from water tests taken at the LA Fitness in Metro West; those could be back within the week, said Kent Donahue, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Orange County.
The samples were taken at several spots in the Hunters Creek gym, “before the hyperchlorination of the spa and the install of point-of-use filters on the showers,” Donahue said in an email.
Health officials were not able to provide the status of the four people that contracted Legionnaires’.
Two customers at each facility were diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria, which usually grows in closed water systems. The bacteria can be especially harmful to people with compromised respiratory systems and the elderly.
The bacteria grows in the water pipes at large buildings and then is expelled and turned into mist when devices such as showers and spas are turned on.
LA Fitness sent warnings to customers of the two clubs earlier this month warning about the possible contamination. LA Fitness has not responded to a request for comment about the positive test.
Reports of Legionnaires’ disease and Legionella bacteria happen more frequently in enclosed water systems, such as hot tubs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC reports that there were about 6,000 cases of Legionnaires’ diseases reported in 2015 in the United States.
LA Fitness has been involved in two other Legionnaires’ investigations in Orange County in the last decade, including in 2008 at a club on Michigan Street in Orlando and in 2010 at an LA Fitness in the Waterford Lakes area.
However, health clubs are not a common source of Legionnaires’ disease, said Laura Cooley, a medical epidemiologist for the CDC.
State health officials recommended that LA Fitness consult with a water management company to address the issues.
Earlier this month a spokeswoman for LA Fitness said the company has hired water treatment firm Nalco Company to help take care of any problems.
Investigators in Lake County are also looking into three cases of Legionnaires’ disease tied to the hot tub at a senior living community in Clermont. Results from that test were not yet available.