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Environmental Surveillance of Legionellosis within an Italian University Hospital—Results of 15 Years of Analysis

Legionnaires’ disease is normally acquired by inhalation of legionellae from a contaminated environmental source. Water systems of large and old buildings, such as hospitals, can be contaminated with legionellae and therefore represent a potential risk for the hospital population. In this study, we...

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Autores principales: Laganà, Pasqualina, Facciolà, Alessio, Palermo, Roberta, Delia, Santi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480113/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30925660
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16071103
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author Laganà, Pasqualina
Facciolà, Alessio
Palermo, Roberta
Delia, Santi
author_facet Laganà, Pasqualina
Facciolà, Alessio
Palermo, Roberta
Delia, Santi
author_sort Laganà, Pasqualina
collection PubMed
description Legionnaires’ disease is normally acquired by inhalation of legionellae from a contaminated environmental source. Water systems of large and old buildings, such as hospitals, can be contaminated with legionellae and therefore represent a potential risk for the hospital population. In this study, we demonstrated the constant presence of Legionella in water samples from the water system of a large university hospital in Messina (Sicily, Italy) consisting of 11 separate pavilions during a period of 15 years (2004–2018). In total, 1346 hot water samples were collected between January 2004 and December 2018. During this period, to recover Legionella spp. from water samples, the standard procedures reported by the 2000 Italian Guidelines were adopted; from May 2015 to 2018 Italian Guidelines revised in 2015 (ISS, 2015) were used. Most water samples (72%) were positive to L. pneumophila serogroups 2–14, whereas L. pneumophila serogroup 1 accounted for 18% and non-Legionella pneumophila spp. Accounted for 15%. Most of the positive samples were found in the buildings where the following critical wards are situated: (Intensive Care Unit) ICU, Neurosurgery, Surgeries, Pneumology, and Neonatal Intensive Unit Care. This study highlights the importance of the continuous monitoring of hospital water samples to prevent the potential risk of nosocomial legionellosis.
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spelling pubmed-64801132019-04-29 Environmental Surveillance of Legionellosis within an Italian University Hospital—Results of 15 Years of Analysis Laganà, Pasqualina Facciolà, Alessio Palermo, Roberta Delia, Santi Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Legionnaires’ disease is normally acquired by inhalation of legionellae from a contaminated environmental source. Water systems of large and old buildings, such as hospitals, can be contaminated with legionellae and therefore represent a potential risk for the hospital population. In this study, we demonstrated the constant presence of Legionella in water samples from the water system of a large university hospital in Messina (Sicily, Italy) consisting of 11 separate pavilions during a period of 15 years (2004–2018). In total, 1346 hot water samples were collected between January 2004 and December 2018. During this period, to recover Legionella spp. from water samples, the standard procedures reported by the 2000 Italian Guidelines were adopted; from May 2015 to 2018 Italian Guidelines revised in 2015 (ISS, 2015) were used. Most water samples (72%) were positive to L. pneumophila serogroups 2–14, whereas L. pneumophila serogroup 1 accounted for 18% and non-Legionella pneumophila spp. Accounted for 15%. Most of the positive samples were found in the buildings where the following critical wards are situated: (Intensive Care Unit) ICU, Neurosurgery, Surgeries, Pneumology, and Neonatal Intensive Unit Care. This study highlights the importance of the continuous monitoring of hospital water samples to prevent the potential risk of nosocomial legionellosis. MDPI 2019-03-28 2019-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6480113/ /pubmed/30925660 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16071103 Text en © 2019 by the authors. 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Laganà, Pasqualina
Facciolà, Alessio
Palermo, Roberta
Delia, Santi
Environmental Surveillance of Legionellosis within an Italian University Hospital—Results of 15 Years of Analysis
title Environmental Surveillance of Legionellosis within an Italian University Hospital—Results of 15 Years of Analysis
title_full Environmental Surveillance of Legionellosis within an Italian University Hospital—Results of 15 Years of Analysis
title_fullStr Environmental Surveillance of Legionellosis within an Italian University Hospital—Results of 15 Years of Analysis
title_full_unstemmed Environmental Surveillance of Legionellosis within an Italian University Hospital—Results of 15 Years of Analysis
title_short Environmental Surveillance of Legionellosis within an Italian University Hospital—Results of 15 Years of Analysis
title_sort environmental surveillance of legionellosis within an italian university hospital—results of 15 years of analysis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480113/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30925660
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16071103
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