2 dead from mysterious Legionnaires' disease outbreak in Melbourne, Australia

By Anadolu staff

ANKARA (AA) - Two people are confirmed dead from Legionnaires' disease in Melbourne, Australia, with health authorities still working to identify the source of an outbreak that has left scores of people hospitalized, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Sunday.

Clare Looker, the chief health officer of Victoria state, where Melbourne is the capital, confirmed that a man in his sixties and a woman in her nineties had died from the disease.

The number of cases in Melbourne has grown to 77, all but two of which needed hospitalization.

"We've definitely seen a decrease in the speed with which notifications are coming in and definitely a clustering of those symptoms and onsets from those earlier dates," she said.

Health authorities narrowed down the likely source of the outbreak to water cooling towers on industrial buildings in the suburbs of Laverton North and Derrimut.

Authorities have urged people who visited Melbourne since mid-July to seek medical advice if they have the symptoms of a chest infection alongside a fever, chill, cough, and headaches.

The disease is not spread by person-to-person transmission, and authorities have been working to determine the source of the outbreak.

The ongoing outbreak is the largest since a group of 125 cases in 2000.