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According to a BBC report, the HPA also conducted a pilot study where they found 1 in 5 cars without screenwash carried traces of Legionella while none of the cars that had screenwash had the bacteria.
Professor Hugh Pennington, a well known expert in bacteriology, told the BBC it made sense to recommend that people make sure they have screenwash in their cars. Legionella is a bug that takes advantage of warm water systems that are not cleaned out, and if something this simple can prevent people catching the disease, then “it’s a no brainer really”, he remarked.
There are more than 40 species of Legionella bacteria, with L. pneumophila most commonly associated with Legionnaires’ disease. Although naturally occuring in lakes, rivers and reservoirs, and can lie dormant at low temperatures, the bacteria thrive in temperatures between 20 and 40 degrees C and can colonise manufactured water systems, where they feed on the scale, sediment, sludge and various bio-films that build up.
To be hazardous to humans Legionella bacteria need to be present in sufficient numbers and to be pathogenic, some strains being more infectious than others. They are usually transmitted via tiny water droplets, for instance in showers and air conditioning units, and person to person transmission is not thought to be a way to catch the disease.
Symptoms usually appear between two and ten days after infection, although in rare cases it may take longer. Illness starts with fever, muscle ache, headache, dry cough, and shortness of breath, and develops into pneumonia. Some people may also experience diarrhea, vomiting, confusion and delirium.
Most patients improve with treatment which includes antibiotics, but in the more vulnerable cases, such as the elderly or the already sick, severe illness, respiratory or systemic failure and shock can happen. Among otherwishe healthy people, the death rate is between 10 and 15 per cent.
According to figures produced by the European Working Group for Legionella Infections, in 2006, there were 6,280 cases of Legionnaires’ disease reported from 35 countries in Europe.