Legionnaire's victim found dead at home

AN elderly woman has died and a man is recovering at home after contracting legionnaire’s disease.

The two victims - both from Dunfermline, Fife - contracted the rare illness within days of each other.

A 70-year-old woman was found dead at her home after succumbing to the deadly disease.

Just a week later, a 53-year-old man was rushed to the town’s Queen Margaret Hospital suffering from the symptoms of legionnaire’s. He is now recovering at home having survived his brush with the disease.

Investigators are now probing how the two victims contracted legionnaire’s and are looking into whether they could have picked it up while abroad.

However, health officials are trying to calm fears of an outbreak and are stressing to the public that the deadly illness does not spread from person to person.

A spokesman for Fife NHS Trust said: "There is no link between the two cases. There is a suspicion that the older lady contracted the illness while on holiday abroad. It must be stressed that the two cases are not related in any way whatsoever."

Dr Charles Saunders, a specialist in legionnaire’s and consultant in public health medicine for the Fife NHS Board, confirmed an investigation into what had caused the cases was ongoing. He said: "We are working closely with Fife Council’s environmental health department to look into possible sources of infection.

"Investigations so far have not identified a common link between these two cases."

It is thought that people catch legionnaire’s by inhaling small droplets of water suspended in the air, which contain bacteria.

Earlier this month, traces of the bug which can cause the disease were found in a water cistern which feeds a special tilting bath at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Doctors said only one female patient had used the bath and had since been given the all-clear after undergoing tests.

Tests showed the bacterium was one of the mildest strains of Legionella and did not pose a risk to patients’ health, but infection control staff isolated the system leading to the bath before testing the hospital’s entire water supply.

The lethal virus occurs more frequently in men than women and usually effects middle-aged or elderly people. There are only around 30 to 40 cases reported in Scotland each year, with most victims aged between 40 and 70.

Outbreaks can occur from purpose-built water systems where temperatures are warm enough to encourage growth of the bacteria. The most common way for people to catch the bug is through contaminated air conditioning systems, showers and whirlpool baths.

The main symptoms of legionnaire’s are similar to those of flu - high temperature, cough, muscle pains, headache, pneumonia, diarrhoea and signs of mental confusion.

Patents usually go through mental confusion such as disorientation, hallucination and loss of memory and it is fatal in up to 15 per cent of cases.

However, if caught at the right stage legionnaire’s can be treated with antibiotics but recovery usually takes weeks.

One of Britain’s worst outbreaks of the disease was two years ago in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, when around 140 people became infected with the virus and seven died.

A local authority official was charged with manslaughter over the outbreak after it emerged that the disease originated at a council-run arts centre.

Gillian Beckingham, who was deemed responsible for the air conditioning system at the centre, is set to stand trial in connection with the case on January 12.