Version 1
: Received: 4 July 2024 / Approved: 4 July 2024 / Online: 4 July 2024 (15:19:12 CEST)
How to cite:
Crook, B.; Young, C.; Ridout, C.; Smith, D. The Contribution of Legionella anisa to Legionella Contamination of Water in the Built Environment. Preprints2024, 2024070463. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0463.v1
Crook, B.; Young, C.; Ridout, C.; Smith, D. The Contribution of Legionella anisa to Legionella Contamination of Water in the Built Environment. Preprints 2024, 2024070463. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0463.v1
Crook, B.; Young, C.; Ridout, C.; Smith, D. The Contribution of Legionella anisa to Legionella Contamination of Water in the Built Environment. Preprints2024, 2024070463. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0463.v1
APA Style
Crook, B., Young, C., Ridout, C., & Smith, D. (2024). The Contribution of Legionella anisa to Legionella Contamination of Water in the Built Environment. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0463.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Crook, B., Ceri Ridout and Duncan Smith. 2024 "The Contribution of Legionella anisa to Legionella Contamination of Water in the Built Environment" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.0463.v1
Abstract
Legionella bacteria can proliferate in poorly maintained water systems, posing risks to users. All Legionella species are potentially pathogenic but Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is usually the primary focus of testing. However, Legionella anisa (L. anisa) also colonises water distribution systems, is frequently found with L. pneumophila and could be a good indicator for increased risk of nosocomial infection. Anonymized data from three commercial Legionella testing laboratories afforded analysis of 565,750 water samples. Data covered July 2019 to August 2021, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Results confirmed L. anisa commonly colonises water distribution systems, being the most frequently identified non-L. pneumophila species. Proportions of L. anisa and L. pneumophila generally remained similar but increases in L. pneumophila during COVID-19 lockdown suggests static water supplies might favour its growth. Disinfection of hospital water systems was effective but re-colonization did occur, appearing to favour L. pneumophila, although L. anisa colony numbers also increased as a proportion of the total. While L. pneumophila remains the main species of concern as a risk to human health, L. anisa’s role should not be under-estimated, either as a potential infection risk or as an indicator of the need to intervene to control Legionella colonization of water supplies.
Keywords
Legionella pneumophila; Legionella anisa; water systems; hospital; disinfection and recolonization; COVID-19 lockdown
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Public, Environmental and Occupational Health
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
