Legionnaire’s Disease Hits 8 Norco Workers

NORCO, Calif. — Eight city workers are being treated for symptoms of Legionnaires disease that they apparently contracted while repairing a broken water line.

“It’s a fairly strong presumption (that it is Legionnaires disease),” said Dr. Michael Finney of Corona, who last week examined 14 workers complaining of flu-like symptoms.

Eight workers remain under treatment. All the men had worked in or near a water-filled ditch in a sparsely populated area of southwest Norco.

Dr. David Dassey, chief of Riverside County disease control, said the outbreak does not pose a general health threat.

“It is not a communicable disease,” he said. “It’s an environmentally acquired disease.”

Dassey said it was unlikely that the water source at the site was contaminated.

Both Finney and Dassey said results of blood tests--expected in two weeks--could confirm the diagnosis.

The disease was first identified in 1976, when 29 people died after mysteriously contracting the virus at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia.