Health board hunts for Legionnaires’ disease source as patient tests positive

A HOSPITAL which confirmed it is treating an elderly patient for Legionnaires’ disease says it will know by the end of next week if the potentially-fatal infection was contracted in-house or in the community.

The South Eastern Health Board confirmed that a patient in St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny has been diagnosed with the disease.

Tests have since been carried out in the man’s home and in his community as well as throughout the hospital to confirm the source of the infection.

“The results of this testing will be available to us on Friday week. Tests were carried out within the hospital and within the community. But quite often it is extremely difficult to source the cause of the infection,” a health board spokesperson said.

Last April, 61-year-old Ena Kiely from Co Waterford died at Waterford Regional Hospital from Legionnaires’ disease.

Subsequent tests confirmed she had acquired the bug from either a shower head or a tap in her en-suite bathroom at the hospital.

The latest confirmed case in Kilkenny was only detected in the past few days.

The man, who has had a kidney transplant in the past, was admitted to the hospital a week ago complaining of a dry cough and shortness of breath.

A subsequent chest X-ray showed he had pneumonia. A test for the legionella strain was then carried out and found to be positive. The man has since been treated with antibiotics and has responded well to treatment.

It is believed that he did not pick up the infection in the hospital but tests are being carried out on all water sources, as a precaution, sources said.

The health board could not confirm if the man was placed in a single, private room or in a ward when admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia. But a spokesperson said it was irrelevant as legionnaires’ disease does not spread through person-to-person contact.

And she added that there have been no further cases or suspected cases and that the case is being treated as a single, isolated incident.

Since the Waterford case, the SEHB has introduced protocols for testing water sources for the bacteria as well as the regular flushing of taps and showers in all of its hospitals. And it recently spent €100,000 on new water tanks in St Luke’s.