Legionnaires’ marches on

Safety professionals have expressed concern at the rise in the number of cases of legionnaires’ disease, a type of pneumonia which can be contracted through workplace exposure, over the past decade.

The disease is spread by the Legionella bacterium, which can exist in small droplets of water suspended in the air. Contaminated cooling towers or evaporative condensers, found in large air-conditioning and water cooling systems, provide an ideal habitat in which the bacterium can multiply.

An article in the latest edition of Safety & Health Practitioner, the magazine of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), highlights figures from the Health Protection Agency showing that the number of cases recorded in 2006 was 552 – almost three times the number observed 10 years earlier. Over the same period, the number of fatalities caused by legionella almost doubled, from 24 to 47.

“Simple prevention and maintenance procedures can really reduce the level of risk”, IOSH said.