The daughter of a 49-year-old Rhymney woman who died of Legionnaires’ disease has said her mother had fought the disease for two weeks.
Bev Morgan died in hospital on Sunday. Her daughter Rebecca Williams said the mother of two had been suffering from pneumonia caused by Legionnaires’.
Ms Williams was told by the hospital that legionella had been found in her mother’s test results.
She told the BBC: “It got very bad and we were thinking the worst and then she started to improve.
“They took her off sedation and she woke up and she was aware we were with her, nodding to us, holding our hands and everything.
“Then she started deteriorating again and she wasn’t comfortable – this is over a two-week period.
“She had gone down and back and she had started deteriorating again. [They] sedated her and she didn’t last much longer really.”
Public Health Wales has defended its decision to delay a public announcement by four days.
Doctors were first alerted to the outbreak on September 3.
Two other people have died from the disease but are not being linked to the outbreak area.
Bev Morgan’s death is the only one linked to the outbreak.
The area the authorities are investigating for the cause of the outbreak is the corridor 12km (7.5 miles) either side of the Heads of the Valleys road between Abergavenny in Monmouthshire and Llandarcy in Neath Port Talbot.
William Graham, Conservative AM for South Wales East, said: “I have total confidence in the investigation to identify the source of this outbreak by Public Health Wales, the Health and Safety Executive and environmental health officers from our local authorities.
“People should be aware that Legionnaires disease starts with flu-like symptoms and can potentially lead to pneumonia. However, it is not passed on through person to person contact. People become infected when they breathe in the Legionella bacteria, which have spread through the air in the form of a fine mist or droplets from a contaminated water source.
“I advise anyone who has concerns about their health to contact their GP.”