Tune in to the Discovery Health channel at 8 pm on Wednesday, October 2, and you'll likely see some familiar faces and places from around the New River Valley. New Dominion Pictures, a Suffolk, Virginia, production company, produced a one-hour episode on the 1996 Legionnaire's outbreak in the New River Valley for the Medical Mysteries series on the Discovery Health channel. This premiere episode is one of twelve hour-long documentaries featuring extraordinary stories of doctors, patients, and the fight to survive. The locally-based episode, titled Diagnosis Unknown: Tracking a Killer, reenacts the events surrounding the tracking of the Legionnaire's disease outbreak (23 confirmed cases with 2 deaths) in the New River Health District. This documentary highlights the intensive investigation--conducted by public health officials from the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)--that tracked the source of the disease to a hot tub display at a local home improvement center. The episode features various phases of the outbreak investigation and captures the community's concern as New River Valley residents became ill with the unusual, life-threatening respiratory illness. It also portrays the collaborative endeavor between local, state, and federal public health officials--and their coordination with local hospitals and physicians, businesses, the media, and New River Valley citizens--to strategically investigate the puzzling and dangerous public health threat that was spreading rapidly throughout the area.
In April 2002, New Dominion Pictures filmed reenactments and investigative staff interviews for the episode at the Montgomery County Health Department and the New River Health District headquarters office in Christiansburg, Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg, WFNR Radio in Radford/Pulaski, and throughout the New River Valley. The Blue Ridge-Southwest Virginia Film Office, Inc., provided some of the local actors in the production and coordinated some of the local filming opportunities with New Dominion Pictures. Additionally, some members of the New River Health District team also filmed segments of the episode at the New Dominion Pictures studio in Suffolk. A regional epidemiologist from VDH, as well as laboratory staff at CDC and Virginia's public health laboratory, the Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services (DCLS), are also featured on this episode.
The New River Health District's investigation in the fall of 1996 was initiated by reports of increased pneumonia cases in area hospitals. The collaborative investigation that ensued involved local public health personnel from the New River Health District and neighboring local health departments, the state health department (VDH's Office of Epidemiology), and the CDC. The investigation results linked the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease to a whirlpool spa on display at a local home improvement store. In contrast with other documented spa- or whirlpool-associated outbreaks, none of the case patients actually entered the water. Instead, all were most likely exposed by walking or standing near the spa. Although most community-wide outbreaks of legionellosis have resulted from transmission from an outdoor source (e.g., cooling towers), this investigation underscored the potential for such outbreaks in association with contaminated indoor sources. Following the investigation, VDH recommended that whirlpool spas being used as displays be regularly inspected and maintained with biocides and that filters be regularly changed or decontaminated. Based on the findings of this investigation, the CDC assessed their guidelines for the maintenance of whirlpool spas on cruise ships and made necessary modifications regarding use of land-based whirlpool spas, including those that are being operated while on display.
In addition to the October 2nd broadcast, Discovery Health has scheduled this locally-filmed Medical Mysteries episode to air again on October 5th (10 pm), October 23rd (8 pm), and October 26th (10 pm).
Additional information including a photo gallery of production highlights, behind the scenes filming, and "local stars" can be found at http://www.blueridgeswvafilm.org/.