Nevada Officials Investigating Possible Cases of Legionnaires Disease

The first was in December of last year and the second was in June of this year. People can contract Legionnaires’ Disease through exposure to water or mist containing Legionella bacteria.

“We are aware that Southern Nevada Health District is presently investigating two cases of Legionnaires’ disease reported by guests who stayed at Caesars Palace. We are fully cooperating with the investigation, and the most recent environmental testing did not detect Legionella bacteria,” said Dayna Calkins, a spokesperson for Caesars Palace.

The good news is that most healthy people are able to fight off the disease without even knowing they have it. It has symptoms similar to a common cold but it varies in severity. It is estimated by the World Health Organization that only about 0.00015 percent of people per million get the disease.

Eighteen of 19 tests of the Caesars Palace water system came back negative. Remediation efforts by the hotel to mitigate the one positive tests have been implemented.

“Caesars Palace maintains a robust safety program to minimize the potential for the Legionella bacteria to survive in the water systems at its property that meet or exceed industry standards. In addition, we immediately took further steps to remediate the presence of any trace amounts of Legionella bacteria relating to the two instances being investigated by the Southern Nevada Health District,” Calkins said on behalf of the hotel.

“We are confident in the integrity of our systems and the safety protocols we rigorously follow,” Calkins added.

The disease is most prevalent in hotel swimming pools.