Christchurch had a rare outbreak of Legionaries disease, caused by an organism that typically lives in water condensation that forms in the likes of air vents. One man is dead and another eight are in hospital recovering from the disease. As the TVNZ article notes, the disease was first seen in an outbreak among a meeting of the American Legion in Philadelphia. The response from the American government at the time was very swift, with over a million dollars committed to tracking down the disease and where it came from.
A good contrast to the relative unimportance that the administration of the time placed on AIDS, now one of the most important diseases in the entire world.
