A large community outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal, October to November 2014

T Shivaji; C Sousa Pinto; A San-Bento; L A Oliveira Serra; J Valente; J Machado; T Marques; L Carvalho; P J Nogueira; B Nunes; P Vasconcelos

doi:10.2807/1560-7917.ES2014.19.50.20991

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A large community outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal, October to November 2014
T Shivaji^1,2 , C Sousa Pinto¹ , A San-Bento¹ , L A Oliveira Serra¹ , J Valente¹ , J Machado³ , T Marques¹ , L Carvalho⁴ , P J Nogueira¹ , B Nunes³ , P Vasconcelos¹
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Affiliations: ¹ Directorate General of Health, Lisbon, Portugal ² European Intervention Epidemiology Training Programme (EPIET), European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Stockholm, Sweden ³ National Institute of Health Dr Ricardo Jorge, Lisbon, Portugal ⁴ Centro de Estatística e Aplicações Universidade de Lisboa (Centre for Statistics and Applications of the University of Lisbon), Lisbon, Portugal

Correspondence:
T Shivaji
tarashivaji dgs.pt
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Citation style for this article: Shivaji T, Sousa Pinto C, San-Bento A, Oliveira Serra L A, Valente J, Machado J, Marques T, Carvalho L, Nogueira P J, Nunes B, Vasconcelos P. A large community outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal, October to November 2014. Euro Surveill. 2014;19(50):pii=20991. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES2014.19.50.20991 Received: 01 Dec 2014

Abstract

An outbreak of Legionnaires' disease with 334 confirmed cases was identified on 7 November 2014 in Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal and declared controlled by 21 November. Epidemiological, environmental and microbiological analysis identified industrial wet cooling systems to be the probable source of infection. Preliminary results from sequence-based typing of clinical specimens and environmental isolates confirmed this link. A series of meteorological phenomena are likely to have contributed to the scale of this outbreak. .