[IWAR] BIO Legionnaires' disease

From: 7Pillars Partners (partnersat_private)
Date: Sat Apr 04 1998 - 09:38:38 PST

  • Next message: 7Pillars Partners: "[IWAR] BIO H. pylori and ulcers"

    Legionnaires' Disease Tied To Sump Pump
    
       NEW YORK (Reuters) -- For the first time, an outbreak of Legionnaires'
       disease has been linked to a sump pump.
       
       In September of 1996, three people (the owner, a waitress, and a
       customer) who spent time at a bar in St. Louis, Missouri, developed
       Legionnaires' disease, a potentially fatal form of pneumonia. Dr. J.L.
       Kool and colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
       in Atlanta, Georgia, investigated the case and determined that a severe
       rainstorm had caused the sump pump in the bar's basement to work almost
       continuously for three days.
       
       "It is possible that the pump produced sufficient heat during flooding
       to provide environmental temperatures favourable for the growth of
       Legionella," the authors write in the April 4th issue of The Lancet. The
       researchers suggest that sawdust and rotting wood helped spread the
       disease through cracks in the bar's floor after a jet of water came out
       a small hole in the side of the sump pump.
       
       After the pump was disconnected, no new cases of Legionnaires' disease
       were linked to the bar.
       
       "To our knowledge, this is the first time that a sump pump has been
       implicated as the source of an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease," the
       investigators state. They call for a better understanding of how
       Legionnaires' disease may develop from previously unrecognized sources.
       SOURCE: The Lancet (1998;351:1030)
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 13:06:53 PDT