By NewsDesk  @infectiousdiseasenews

In Heilbronn District, in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, it is reported that five men and women have contracted Legionnaires’ disease and two have died.

Germany/CIA

The patients came from Obersulm, Ellhofen, Weinsberg and Löwenstein, health officials announced. Most of them are middle-aged and older men. The two deceased men had a previous illness and were 49 and 81 years old.

Health authorities are feverishly looking for the source of the contamination.

Experts from the Heilbronn health department are not assuming that contaminated drinking water is the cause of the infections. The sick lived in different places, there are several water suppliers. “The surrounding sewage treatment plants were also sampled,” said a spokeswoman for the dpa office. “We assume that the cause can be found in an evaporative cooling system.” The health department fears that there may be more cases.