Some Interesting Facts about Legionella
On 27 July 1976, as America celebrated the bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence, five military veterans died of apparent heart attacks.
All had attended the 58th annual convention of the Pennsylvania State American Legion in Philadelphia five days earlier. All had stayed at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, and all had experienced tiredness, chest pains, lung congestion and fever. Six more delegates died the next day. Within a week 221 of the legionnaires who had stayed at the hotel were hospitalised with the same symptoms and 34 had died. Most were men aged 39 to 82.
An investigation by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) interviewed the survivors and carried out microscopic autopsies.
Soil, air and water samples from the hotel were analysed. In December, DCD laboratory scientist Joseph McDade isolated the bacterium and it was named Legionella pneumophila. The theory was that it had spread via the hotel's air-conditioning system. This could not be proven so long after the event, but later epidemiological studies have advanced our knowledge. When the CDC report appeared the following April, the term Legionnaires' disease was published for the first time.
Legionnaires' disease in the UK
Legionnaire’s disease effects about 500 people a year in England, killing around one in ten. There have been several outbreaks:
1985 - Stafford District Hospital
175 cases and 28 confirmed deaths
Source of infection: rooftop air-conditioning cooling tower
2002 - Forum 28 arts centre, Barrow-in-Furness
172 cases and 7 confirmed deaths
Source of infection: contaminated cooling tower
2012 - Warehouse, Stoke-on-Trent
19 cases, 1 confirmed death
Source of infection: the warehouse hot tub
More Legionella facts
Legionella can spread more than 10 km in the air, according to a Norwegian study
One in 10 people who get sick from Legionnaires’ disease will die, CDC predicts
Legionella is found naturally in fresh water environments like lakes and streams, but becomes a health concern when it grows in human-made water systems
People contract Legionnaires’ disease by inhaling small water droplets in the air that contain the bacterium
Six percent of domestic properties have dangerously high levels of the bug, according to the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health - equivalent to 1.5 million UK households
693 cases of Legionnaires’ disease were reported in 2017
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