legionnaires Disease Case Studies

Legionnaires Disease

Legionnaires Disease acquired it's name following an outbreak of pneumonia in Philadelphia, USA in 1976.

In July 1976 a conference was taking place at the Belle Vue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. More than 4000 members of the American Legion and United States military veterans association had gathered in Philadelphia with their friends and families for the 58th American Legion's Convention. 600 of them were staying at the Belle Vue Stratford Hotel where the convention was hosted. Within 2 days people had become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms: fever, coughing and breathing difficulties but the celebrations continued. On 27 July, four days after the convention started an Air Force veteran who attended the Philadelphia convention died in hospital in Sayre becoming the first victim of the disease. In total 221 people developed symptoms of the pneumonia-like infection and subsequently 34 died.

The outbreak caused mass panic amongst the public and in the media. In January of 1976 there was an influenza epidemic with nine viruses identified and sent to the Centre for Disease Control where five were identified as the common influenza A virus and four were swine flu viruses. This led the US Government to consider the risk of an outbreak of a swine flu epidemic and the incident prompted a national swine flu vaccination program. The vaccination programme began on 01 October 1976 and within ten weeks nearly 50,000,000 doses of the vaccine had been administered. At the same time the Cold War was still underway and there was speculation that the outbreak could have been a deliberate attack on the veterans by enemy forces.

The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention mounted an unprecedented investigation into the cause of the outbreak and by September 1976 the focus had shifted away from outside influences to the hotel itself. Soil, air and water samples were taken from the hotel and its grounds and on 18 January 1977 the cause was identified as a previously unknown bacterium which subsequently became known as Legionella pneumophilia in reference to the veterans who were the first to contract the disease.

The Legionella bacterium was found to be breeding in the cooling towers of the hotel's air conditioning system. The water from the air conditioning system was then pumped around the hotel spreading the bacterium to every area of the hotel in the fine water vapours pumped into each of the rooms. The negative publicity surrounding the outbreak of the disease caused the hotel, which opened in 1904 to be forced to close in November 1976.

Mario Maloberti, 63, a member of the Jeannette American Legion Post 344 was a survivor of the disease. He later recalled that at the time people did not want to be affiliated to the American Legion because of its links with the disease and some legionnaires were upset by the name. To some it seemed to hint that only veterans could get the disease. In some cases the sick and their family members were ostracised by the community, Janet Maloberti endured public scrutiny whilst her husband was being treated for the affects of the disease at Monsour Medical Centre in Jeannette. "I was losing my voice because nobody would come near me," Janet said, explaining that she was forced to shout to people who would not come near her as they feared they would catch the disease from her. However the disease is spread through infected water sources and cannot be passed from person to person.