About 2 months ago, this page discussed some methods for reducing the risk of Legionnaires’ disease. That post, while informative, often felt a little wonky and clearly focused heavily upon the monitoring of the water system. While clearly designing an effective water system plan with monitoring is vital, this post intends to examine some more practical prevention methods for Legionella bacteria and the contraction of Legionnaires’ disease that can be incorporated in a water system plan. A good place to start is with the actual temperature of the water. To prevent the development of Legionella bacteria, it is suggested that water…
About a month ago, we wrote about Spartan Bioscience and their rapid on-site Legionella DNA testing. Last Wednesday, Spartan Bioscience announced their results from a study examining Canadian federal government buildings. This 12-week long study tested 51 different cooling towers across Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto and compared their weekly on-site Legionella DNA testing against the monthly Legionella culture testing that at the moment, tends to be the far more common method for testing. The Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) designed and ultimately performed this study in collaboration with Spartan Bioscience, a notable partnership since PSPC is one of the…
Earlier this week, we posted about Baumholder, a US army base in Germany that had to decontaminate around 20 housing units after finding high levels of Legionella bacteria there. Now, just 35 miles away, officials at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center are ordering the decontamination of the hospital’s water system after finding Legionella bacteria in two separate areas of the facility. According to the hospital’s spokeswoman Stacy Sanning, the inspectors had originally tested there on February 23 however only recently notified the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center a few days ago of the high levels of Legionella bacteria. Though it remains…
For today’s post, we are once again going to take a bit of a step back from the news and examine some of the fundamentals of Legionella bacteria and Legionnaires’ disease. With that in mind, today’s post will be doing a review of the basics regarding how testing for Legionella is done. Traditionally, Legionella is found by a culture on a buffered charcoal yeast extract agar. One very common procedure for detecting Legionella in water is to concentrate the bacteria before inoculating it onto a charcoal yeast extract agar along with some agents like polymixin, GVPC, vancomycin, glycine, and cyclohexamide in order to suppress any…
We recently wrote about the progress of a bill in the Illinois legislature which would promote the prompt notification in the case of an outbreak of an infectious disease like Legionnaires’ disease. There is, however, another push within these legislative efforts to also promote more rigorous Legionella monitoring. In order to keep Legionnaire’s bacteria from spreading, lawmakers are proposing, in addition to the notification requirements we discussed previously, a new water management plan which would require state operated residence facilities to monitor their potable water systems for Legionella. According to Senator Mike Hastings, “(V)eterans at these homes deserve homes that…
At the Baumholder Army Base in Germany, approximately 20 buildings were decontaminated after finding high levels Legionella bacteria. According to the base doctors, no one staying at the base tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease. Army officials explained their attempts to decontaminate the buildings last Wednesday and according to the commander of U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz Col. Keith Igyarto, workers are doing everything necessary to protect the health of everyone living in the base. The discovery of these buildings came about when the Army tested 124 buildings within the military base and community for Legionella bacteria this past February in order…
The subject of using big data to try and model for future outcomes has been a popular one in relations to numerous types of fields. Yet in regards to this post, one application for modeling which seems particularly interesting is in regards to epidemiology and specifically Legionnaires’ disease. Now the primary paper I could find dates back to March of 2011 however it does draw some interesting conclusions. Essentially they attempt to model a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak using symptom-onset data from several specific outbreaks in order to estimate the beginning and end of the release of Legionella. The researchers are…
Back in February, it was reported by KFOR that around six employees who worked inside the Robinson Renaissance Building had tested positive for Legionella bacteria. In addition, it was also revealed through lab results that the Legionella bacteria was located within one of the building’s cooling systems. Now new testing has been conducted on the downtown Oklahoma City building, testing which shows the building has been cleared of Legionella bacteria. This was revealed when KFOR was given additional information about the extensive testing which had taken place at the building since back in February when KFOR first received the information.…
Earlier last month, researchers with the National Institutes of Health reported that many hospital plumbing systems are a ‘vast’ reservoir of drug-resistant superbug germs and other bacteria like Legionella. This report came after NIH officials had done checks of the plumbing at the their flagship hospital near Washington, D.C., checks which showed drains could be packed with bacteria and ultimately concluded that this issue is likely present at other hospitals. Now the report also mentioned that the superbugs are not very common anywhere else in the hospitals and as such, they are simply unlikely to be an overall threat to…
Numerous topics surrounding Legionella bacteria and Legionnaires’ disease have come up on this site. As an effort to take a step back and examine some of the basics, this post seeks to examine various forms of control and prevention for Legionella bacteria. One effective chemical treatment is chlorine. This is particularly effective for systems with basic marginal issues however for systems with more significant problems, a ‘shock’ chlorination, i.e. when chlorine levels are raised to more than 2 ppm over 24 hours and then brought back down to 0.5 ppm can sometimes prove effective. Hyperchlorination is a somewhat similar process however it…