Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreak in Murcia, Spain
Open Access
- 1 August 2003
- journal article
- Published by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Emerging Infectious Diseases
- Vol. 9 (8) , 915-921
- https://doi.org/10.3201/eid0908.030337
Abstract
An explosive outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease occurred in Murcia, Spain, in July 2001. More than 800 suspected cases were reported; 449 of these cases were confirmed, which made this the world’s largest outbreak of the disease reported to date. Dates of onset for confirmed cases ranged from June 26 to July 19 , with a case-fatality rate of 1%. The epidemic curve and geographic pattern from the 600 completed epidemiologic questionnaires indicated an outdoor point-source exposure in the northern part of the city. A case-control study matching 85 patients living outside the city of Murcia with two controls each was undertaken to identify the outbreak source; the epidemiologic investigation implicated the cooling towers at a city hospital. An environmental isolate from these towers with an identical molecular pattern as the clinical isolates was subsequently identified and supported that epidemiologic conclusion.Keywords
This publication has 37 references indexed in Scilit:
- Pan-European Study on Culture-Proven Legionnaires' Disease: Distribution of Legionella pneumophila Serogroups and Monoclonal SubgroupsEuropean Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, 2002
- Legionella and Legionnaires' Disease: 25 Years of InvestigationClinical Microbiology Reviews, 2002
- Sampling and detection of Legionella pneumophila aerosols generated from an industrial cooling towerAnnals of Work Exposures and Health, 2001
- Community Spread of Legionella pneumophila Serogroup 1 in Temporal Relation to a Nosocomial OutbreakScandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2001
- Assessment of Intercentre Reproducibility and Epidemiological Concordance of Legionella pneumophila Serogroup 1 Genotyping by Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism AnalysisEuropean Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, 2000
- Persistence ofLegionella Pneumophilain a Hospital's Water System: A 13-Year SurveyInfection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 1999
- LegionellosisNew England Journal of Medicine, 1997
- Delay in appropriate therapy ofLegionella pneumonia associated with increased mortalityEuropean Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, 1996
- Source of infection for sporadic Legionnaires' disease: A reviewJournal of Infection, 1995
- An Outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease Associated with a Contaminated Air-Conditioning Cooling TowerNew England Journal of Medicine, 1980