Hi all…in keeping with the main research topics I mentioned in my last communication, a paper on a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak which was thought to be associated with the Flint Michigan lead incident has just been published in Environmental Health Perspectives. The objective of the investigation “was to independently identify relevant sources of Legionella pneumophila that likely resulted in the outbreak.” Perhaps not surprisingly to those working in the area, it was reported that “this is the first LD outbreak in the United States with evidence for three sources (in 2014): a) exposure to hospital A, b) receiving Flint water at home, and c) residential proximity to cooling towers; however, for 2015, evidence points to hospital A only. Each source could be associated with only a proportion of cases. A focus on a single source may have delayed recognition and remediation of other significant sources of L. pneumophila.” This reminds us of how complex the issue of Legionella control is. The last paragraph in paper (p. 9) is worth reading if you are interested guidelines or control of outbreaks.
This is an open access paper available at: https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP5663 or https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/pdf/10.1289/EHP5663
Bill_______________________________________________
Multiple Sources of the Outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease in Genesee County, Michigan, in 2014 and 2015
Anya F. Smith, Anke Huss, Samuel Dorevitch, Leo Heijnen, Vera H. Arntzen, Megan Davies, Mirna Robert-Du Ry van Beest Holle, Yuki Fujita, Antonie M. Verschoor, Bernard Raterman, Frank Oesterholt, Dick Heederik, and Gertjan Medema
Environmental Health Perspectives 127(12) December 2019
“BACKGROUND: A community-wide outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease (LD) occurred in Genesee County, Michigan, in 2014 and 2015. Previous reports about the outbreak are conflicting and have associated the outbreak with a change of water source in the city of Flint and, alternatively, to a Flint hospital.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this investigation was to independently identify relevant sources of Legionella pneumophila that likely resulted in the outbreak.
METHODS: An independent, retrospective investigation of the outbreak was conducted, making use of public health, health care, and environmental data and whole-genome multilocus sequence typing (wgMLST) of clinical and environmental isolates.
RESULTS: Strong evidence was found for a hospital-associated outbreak in both 2014 and 2015: a) 49% of cases had prior exposure to Flint hospital A, significantly higher than expected from Medicare admissions; b) hospital plumbing contained high levels of L. pneumophila; c) Legionella control measures in hospital plumbing aligned with subsidence of hospital A-associated cases; and d) wgMLST showed Legionella isolates from cases exposed to hospital A and from hospital plumbing to be highly similar. Multivariate analysis showed an increased risk of LD in 2014 for people residing in a home that received Flint water or was located in proximity to several Flint cooling towers.
DISCUSSION: This is the first LD outbreak in the United States with evidence for three sources (in 2014): a) exposure to hospital A, b) receiving Flint water at home, and c) residential proximity to cooling towers; however, for 2015, evidence points to hospital A only. Each source could be associated with only a proportion of cases. A focus on a single source may have delayed recognition and remediation of other significant sources of L. pneumophila.”
