Regulatory and Risk Management Strategies for Control of Legionella
Susanne Surman-Lee and James T. Walker
from: Legionellosis Diagnosis and Control in the Genomic Era (Edited by: Jacob Moran-Gilad and Rachel E. Gibbs). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2020) Pages: 249-284.
Abstract
Despite four decades passing since the discovery of Legionella, Legionnaires' disease (LD) is the deadliest waterborne disease in the United States, and according to the WHO, Legionella still has the highest burden of all water borne pathogens. This is despite years of improved understanding of the microorganism, engineering practices and control measures. A number of large outbreaks in The Netherlands, UK, and USA resulted in changes in legislation to enable the publication of regulatory documents for the control of Legionella in water systems. Countries where regulatory documents have been published often lack resources to monitor the implementation across wide ranges of water systems that could pose health risks. The WHO advised that Water Safety Groups (WSGs) be initiated, and this has been adopted into guidance in the UK for large healthcare establishments. The advantage of this approach is that it enables teams with the required expertise to undertake or engage with other professionals to carry out risk assessments to identify the hazards to vulnerable patients read more ...
