Thursday, April 28, 2005
They found Legionnaries' disease in a teaching hospital in NYC
"Legionnaires' disease is a bacterial infection with pneumonia-like symptoms that first became widely known after a 1976 outbreak killed 34 people attending an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8,000 to 18,000 people contract the disease each year in the United States, and it is rarely fatal except for people with weakened immune systems."
It's one of those diseases that you study about in medical school, but rarely see in real life.
"Legionnaires' disease is a bacterial infection with pneumonia-like symptoms that first became widely known after a 1976 outbreak killed 34 people attending an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8,000 to 18,000 people contract the disease each year in the United States, and it is rarely fatal except for people with weakened immune systems."
It's one of those diseases that you study about in medical school, but rarely see in real life.
Posted by Kevin |
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Comments:
It's unsurprising that Legionnaire's Disease was found in any hospital. The bacteria is ubiquitous. If you look for it in nearly any water system, you will find it at some level. Most industrial, commercial and municipal water systems are operated to minimize the risk of the bacteria proliferating to levels which have been associated with outbreaks, but it can't be eliminated.
Having been involved in water treatment for the past 30 years, I've seen it go from unknown, to "oh my God, it's everywhere", to "it affects only susceptible individuals", to "how do we keep it down to levels not known to cause problems?".
The question for the hospitals, since it's an inhalation hazard normally considered to require easily respirable droplets of a particular size and containing a sufficient concentration of bacteria is how the exposure to a sufficient concentration of bacteria took place. Finding it in the water supply doesn't answer that one.
Regarding your comment on the rarity of the disease....a few years ago an informal pole was conducted at a conference of people who worked around cooling towers. Of the 400+ participants, one person had experienced a case of Legionnaire's Disease and one had experienced Pontiac Fever. This among folks with (theoretically) a higher exposure than the general public.
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Having been involved in water treatment for the past 30 years, I've seen it go from unknown, to "oh my God, it's everywhere", to "it affects only susceptible individuals", to "how do we keep it down to levels not known to cause problems?".
The question for the hospitals, since it's an inhalation hazard normally considered to require easily respirable droplets of a particular size and containing a sufficient concentration of bacteria is how the exposure to a sufficient concentration of bacteria took place. Finding it in the water supply doesn't answer that one.
Regarding your comment on the rarity of the disease....a few years ago an informal pole was conducted at a conference of people who worked around cooling towers. Of the 400+ participants, one person had experienced a case of Legionnaire's Disease and one had experienced Pontiac Fever. This among folks with (theoretically) a higher exposure than the general public.
