Legionnaires’ disease

Legionnaire’s disease is a type of pneumonia caused by the bacteria Legionella. The bacteria got its name in 1976, when many people who went to a Philadelphia convention of the American Legion suffered from an outbreak of this disease.

The Legionella bacteria are found naturally in the environment, usually in water. The bacteria grow best in warm water, like the kind found in hot tubs, cooling towers, hot water tanks, large plumbing systems, or parts of the air-conditioning systems of large buildings.

Legionnaire’s disease can have symptoms similar to that of many other forms of pneumonia, making it difficult to diagnose at first. Common symptoms include a high fever, chills, cough, headache and muscle aches. 

People get Legionnaires' disease when they breathe in a mist or vapor (small droplets of water in the air) that has been contaminated with the bacteria. An example of this may be breathing in the steam from a whirlpool spa that has not been properly cleaned and disinfected.

The disease is not spread from person-to-person.

Measures to prevent the disease range from improving cooling towers and plumbing systems to decontaminating an infected water source.

The initial symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease can occur between two and 14 days after exposure to the bacteria.

Legionnaires’ disease can be serious and can cause death in five to 30 percent of cases; however, most cases can be treated with antibiotics and healthy patients usually recover from infection.

Over the past five years, the average number of cases of Legionnaires’ reported to the Health Department per year is five.

For more information online, you can visit the Centers for Disease Control at http://www.cdc.gov/legionella/index.htm

Or, for more information, please call the Health Department at 859.363.2070.