School is closed after legionella bacteria found in water pipes

Published on Thursday 11 November 2010 15:28

PUPILS at a West Highland school were sent home yesterday after the legionella bacteria was found in the water system.

Kinlochleven High School will remain closed for the rest of the week while deconamination work to rid the property of legionella is completed.

The bacteria, a form of which causes the potentially fatal Legionnaire's disease, was found in the school's hot and cold water systems on Tuesday and NHS Highland were called in to assess the scale of the problem.

Highland Council said that, following tests, it had been advised the health risks were low.

Legionella bacteria can contaminate and grow in other water systems such as cooling towers and evaporative condensers. It can survive low temperatures but is killed by high temperatures.

The council said routine regular monitoring identified the presence of legionella in the school water supply.

After consulting the NHS Highland public health department, Highland Council took the decision to close the school complex until an intensive cleaning operation is completed.

A spokesman for the council said it planned to re-open the school on Monday after a disinfection process had taken place. He advised any building users who had health concerns following the discovery to contact their doctor.

He said: "As a precautionary measure, the building will be closed to allow disinfection of water systems to take place.

"This disinfection will be completed by Monday when the building should reopen.

"Guidance that has been given is that the health risks are currently low but as an additional precautionary measure, showers etc. will remain out of use until the sampling taken at the end of disinfection has been analysed. This will take up to 10 days."

The Kinlochleven school complex was opened in 2008 as one of 11 new establishments built under the Public Private Partnership programme.

Professor Hugh Pennington, Professor Emeritus of Bacteriology at Aberdeen University, said: "We do have the occasional problem in Scotland with legionella.

"It's not that common but we've had problems in Glasgow with cooling towers blowing out legionella in their effluent and there have been one or two institutional hotel outbreaks.

"But finding legionella doesn't mean there's a major health problem because it depends on what kind of bug is present, how much and what the water is going to be used for."

He said that it was of greater concern when found in hospitals, but said that it would be in the showers of the school's gym facilities where the potential for infection was most likely.

Prof Pennington added that it was surprising to find the bug in a new build, but added that health and safety legislation meant that local authorities were more thorough in checking for it nowadays.