Legionnaires’ Disease: Use Water Management Programs in Buildings to Help Prevent Outbreaks: CDC Vital Signs: 06/07/2016

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (U.S.) ; National Center for Environmental Health (U.S.)
• Description:
  CDC investigated the first outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, a serious lung infection (pneumonia), in 1976. An increasing number of people in the US are getting this disease, which is caused by breathing in small water droplets contaminated with Legionella germs. About 5,000 people are diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease and there are at least 20 outbreaks reported each year. Most identified outbreaks are in buildings with large water systems, such as hotels, long-term care facilities, and hospitals. Legionella grows best in building water systems that are not well maintained. Building owners and managers should adopt newly published standards that promote Legionella water management programs, which are ways to reduce the risk of this germ in building water systems.
  
  Building owners and managers can:
  
  • Learn about and follow newly published standards for Legionella water management programs. http://bit.ly/1Ph3wQP
  
  • Determine if the water systems in their buildings are at increased risk of growing and spreading Legionella.
  
  • Develop and use a Legionella water management program as needed. www.cdc.gov/legionella/WMPtoolkit
  
  • Monitor and respond to changes in water quality.
  
  Want to learn more? www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/legionnaires
  
  CS264802A
  
  2016-06-vitalsigns.pdf
  
  
• Subjects:
  Disease Outbreaks/prevention & Control Disinfection Legionnaires' Disease/prevention & Control Water Microbiology Water Supply
• Series:
  Vital Signs
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Popular Works
• Pages in Document:
  4 numbered pages
• Collection(s):
  Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4c2b181ffb9dbd658f1b952b41dce97dcc85b01f544525e0b1b5141fc152c89ed066e211e5a11ee58abf6323eff3ffe22c8210d3e9144b7955930171d815035b
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/39736/cdc_39736_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 6.27 MB ]