The Q&A session for this topic is Q&A 3: Microbiological Contamination and Treatment.
The CDC has reported that Legionnaires’ disease has increased over 4.5 times from 2000- 2015 (Centre of Disease Control, 2017). Legionnaires’ disease is primarily caused by Legionella pneumophlia bacteria when present as an aerosol (Centre of Disease Control, 2017). Outbreaks have been linked to contaminated, poorly maintained water sources in many hospitals and long-term care (LTC) homes (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2017). The CDC has published a Legionella tool kit which is designed to provide a practical guide for implementing industry standards, most notably the latest industry standard ASHRAE 188 Legionellosis: Risk Management for Building Water Systems (Centre of Disease Control, 2017). The CDC guide is designed to assist building owners in developing a water management program to reduce Legionella growth & spread in buildings. This guideline provides building owners/managers a template to produce a Water Management Plan for the facility. It provides suggestions for identifying areas within the building to monitor temperature, residual disinfectants and pH with suggested control limits for each. It also suggests periodic testing for Legionella pneumophlia and corrective action, when contamination control limits are not maintained (Centre of Disease Control, 2017). While these industry standards and policies are certainly a step in the right direction and will surely improve identification of the problem sites, monitoring, corrective action and verification of the building it cannot eliminate the outbreaks for Legionnaires’ disease. Central treatment plants face the problem of distributing
This presentation will focus on a proactive approach that includes water filtration all of the source water & the hot water for potable premise water systems for Legionella and dirt/sediment.
Monitoring of, HPC counts and L. pneumophlia counts, temperature and disinfectant levels combined with corrective action for areas outside of control limits will reduce the Legionella Risk in potable water systems.
