Second patient contracts Legionnaire’s disease while in hospital

A SECOND patient has picked up a potentially fatal respiratory disease from a shower head or water source in a hospital bathroom.

The South Eastern Health Board (SEHB) has received test results which indicate that a patient recently diagnosed with Legionnaire’s disease most likely acquired the infection at St Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny.

The possible source has been traced back to a shower head or sink in the bathroom he was using. It had initially been thought he picked up the disease in the community. The man, who remains in hospital and is seriously ill with another condition, in addition to Legionnaire’s, was diagnosed with the infection on March 29. An immediate probe began both in the hospital and within the man’s community to try to trace the infection source.