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Background |
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Legionnaires’
disease is known to be associated with buildings such as
hotels where water systems or air conditioning systems sometimes
become contaminated with the organism that causes the illness
in people. Tourists who stay in hotels or other holiday
accommodation are therefore a group with a small risk of
getting the disease. The European Surveillance Scheme for
Travel Associated Legionnaires’ Disease was established
to collect information on these cases in order that measures
could be taken to reduce the number of people affected in
the short term when outbreaks occur, and in the long term
through European prevention programmes. The scheme now receives
details of cases from 35 participant countries. |
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Information
on where the patient had travelled and stayed before they
became ill is reported to the co-ordinating centre in London
where it is entered into an international database. The
information on individual cases or outbreaks is immediately
forwarded to the country where the infection was acquired,
so that investigations and control measures can be carried
out at the suspected source(s) of infection. The scheme
adopted the name EWGLINET in 2002, to give it its own identity
within EWGLI. |
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In
2005, around 750 cases of travel associated legionnaires’
disease were reported to EWGLINET. In total, these cases
had visited over 60 different countries before they became
ill. Clusters were identified when two or more cases stayed
at the same place of accommodation within two years of each
other, in the ten days before onset of their illness, and
became ill within two years of each other. Over 90 clusters
were detected in 2005, many of them involving one case from
one country and another from another country. |
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When
the number of tourists visiting popular holiday destinations
is taken into account the rate of infection per million
travellers is very low. In Europe as a whole, infection
rates are around seven cases for every million people. However,
reporting rates differ between countries and it is assumed
that actual rates are probably higher. Current data on where
cases have travelled is available in the Data
/ Info section. |
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Is
the hotel the source of infection? |
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When
travel associated cases of legionnaires’ disease are
forwarded by EWGLINET to the country of infection, the report
never implies that the patient got their infection from
the hotel at which they stayed because they could have got
their infection from a variety of different places. However,
when it is discovered that two or more cases have stayed
at the same accommodation, especially within a short period
of time (such as within two to four weeks), it increases
the probability that the source might be linked to it. In
this situation, urgent investigations at the accommodation
site are expected to be carried out that will help to answer
this question. |
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Most
hotels are aware of the risk of legionnaires’ disease
and have taken measures to prevent this risk as much as
possible. |
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How
do I find out more? |
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There
is more advice available in the European guidelines for
control and prevention of travel associated legionnaires’
disease which are available in the Data
/ Info section. |
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