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Hospital + fountain = trouble

Photo: Urban Review STL
A report in this month's Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology describes an outbreak of Legionellosis involving 8 patients who ended up hospitalized at two hospitals. Via good old fashioned shoe leather epidemiology, it was determined that the only common exposure among these patients was exposure to a hospital with a wall-type water fountain in the lobby. Environmental cultures revealed that the fountain was heavily contaminated with Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1. A few years ago, Dan blogged about another Legionella outbreak associated with a indoor fountain in a hospital. If your hospital has one of these, shut it down!

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  1. Melissa WardJanuary 10, 2012 at 9:51 AM

    When Loreen and I went to Cedar Rapids for a MRSA focus group she commented about the cascading wall-of-water feature at Mercy and how the UI prohibits water features in building designs for the hospital. And then I went to see my mom at St. Luke's a few weeks ago and was surprised to see their new entrance has the same water feature. Do they just not read the articles about Legionella and water fountains?

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