Prevalence of legionella pneumophila from water sources in the Maltese Islands

Abstract

This project has dealt with the prevalence of Legionella pneumophila and other indicator organisms from water sources used in educational, industrial, health institution and recreational environment in Malta and Gozo. A previous study related to the detection of Legionella species in Health Institutional facilities had been performed in 2005 but it did not include the current General Acute Teaching Hospital (GATH) included in this study which accepted patients in late 2007. Another study involving testing of water samples for Legionella was carried out in 2013 and it involved testing of 27 samples from the Maltese Islands which included five water samples from water fountains (Blundell, 2014) . Other studies on Legionella recorded did not involve laboratory-based tests. According to the Annual Epidemiological Report published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) for 2019, there were 5 cases of Legionnaires’ disease recorded in Malta but none resulting in death (ECDC, 2021) [...]