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Environmental Monitoring of Legionella in Hospitals in the Campania Region: A 5-Year Study

Legionella is a pathogen that colonizes soils, freshwater, and building water systems. People who are most affected are those with immunodeficiencies, so it is necessary to monitor its presence in hospitals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the presence of Legionella in water samples collec...

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Autores principales: Lombardi, Annalisa, Borriello, Tonia, De Rosa, Elvira, Di Duca, Fabiana, Sorrentino, Michele, Torre, Ida, Montuori, Paolo, Trama, Ugo, Pennino, Francesca
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10138562/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37107807
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20085526
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author Lombardi, Annalisa
Borriello, Tonia
De Rosa, Elvira
Di Duca, Fabiana
Sorrentino, Michele
Torre, Ida
Montuori, Paolo
Trama, Ugo
Pennino, Francesca
author_facet Lombardi, Annalisa
Borriello, Tonia
De Rosa, Elvira
Di Duca, Fabiana
Sorrentino, Michele
Torre, Ida
Montuori, Paolo
Trama, Ugo
Pennino, Francesca
author_sort Lombardi, Annalisa
collection PubMed
description Legionella is a pathogen that colonizes soils, freshwater, and building water systems. People who are most affected are those with immunodeficiencies, so it is necessary to monitor its presence in hospitals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the presence of Legionella in water samples collected from hospitals in the Campania region, Southern Italy. A total of 3365 water samples were collected from January 2018 to December 2022 twice a year in hospital wards from taps and showers, tank bottoms, and air-treatment units. Microbiological analysis was conducted in accordance with the UNI EN ISO 11731:2017, and the correlations between the presence of Legionella and water temperature and residual chlorine were investigated. In total, 708 samples (21.0%) tested positive. The most represented species was L. pneumophila 2–14 (70.9%). The serogroups isolated were 1 (27.7%), 6 (24.5%), 8 (23.3%), 3 (18.9%), 5 (3.1%), and 10 (1.1%). Non-pneumophila Legionella spp. represented 1.4% of the total. Regarding temperature, the majority of Legionella positive samples were found in the temperature range of 26.0–40.9 °C. An influence of residual chlorine on the presence of the bacterium was observed, confirming that chlorine disinfection is effective for controlling contamination. The positivity for serogroups other than serogroup 1 suggested the need to continue environmental monitoring of Legionella and to focus on the clinical diagnosis of other serogroups.
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spelling pubmed-101385622023-04-28 Environmental Monitoring of Legionella in Hospitals in the Campania Region: A 5-Year Study Lombardi, Annalisa Borriello, Tonia De Rosa, Elvira Di Duca, Fabiana Sorrentino, Michele Torre, Ida Montuori, Paolo Trama, Ugo Pennino, Francesca Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Legionella is a pathogen that colonizes soils, freshwater, and building water systems. People who are most affected are those with immunodeficiencies, so it is necessary to monitor its presence in hospitals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the presence of Legionella in water samples collected from hospitals in the Campania region, Southern Italy. A total of 3365 water samples were collected from January 2018 to December 2022 twice a year in hospital wards from taps and showers, tank bottoms, and air-treatment units. Microbiological analysis was conducted in accordance with the UNI EN ISO 11731:2017, and the correlations between the presence of Legionella and water temperature and residual chlorine were investigated. In total, 708 samples (21.0%) tested positive. The most represented species was L. pneumophila 2–14 (70.9%). The serogroups isolated were 1 (27.7%), 6 (24.5%), 8 (23.3%), 3 (18.9%), 5 (3.1%), and 10 (1.1%). Non-pneumophila Legionella spp. represented 1.4% of the total. Regarding temperature, the majority of Legionella positive samples were found in the temperature range of 26.0–40.9 °C. An influence of residual chlorine on the presence of the bacterium was observed, confirming that chlorine disinfection is effective for controlling contamination. The positivity for serogroups other than serogroup 1 suggested the need to continue environmental monitoring of Legionella and to focus on the clinical diagnosis of other serogroups. MDPI 2023-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC10138562/ /pubmed/37107807 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20085526 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lombardi, Annalisa
Borriello, Tonia
De Rosa, Elvira
Di Duca, Fabiana
Sorrentino, Michele
Torre, Ida
Montuori, Paolo
Trama, Ugo
Pennino, Francesca
Environmental Monitoring of Legionella in Hospitals in the Campania Region: A 5-Year Study
title Environmental Monitoring of Legionella in Hospitals in the Campania Region: A 5-Year Study
title_full Environmental Monitoring of Legionella in Hospitals in the Campania Region: A 5-Year Study
title_fullStr Environmental Monitoring of Legionella in Hospitals in the Campania Region: A 5-Year Study
title_full_unstemmed Environmental Monitoring of Legionella in Hospitals in the Campania Region: A 5-Year Study
title_short Environmental Monitoring of Legionella in Hospitals in the Campania Region: A 5-Year Study
title_sort environmental monitoring of legionella in hospitals in the campania region: a 5-year study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10138562/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37107807
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20085526
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