Search results for "Legionnaires' Disease"
showing 10 items of 18 documents
Genomic investigation of a legionellosis outbreak in a persistently colonized hotel
2016
Objectives: A long-lasting legionellosis outbreak was reported between November 2011 and July 2012 in a hotel in Calpe (Spain) affecting 44 patients including six deaths. Intensive epidemiological and microbiological investigations were performed in order to detect the reservoirs. Methods: Clinical and environmental samples were tested for the presence and genetic characterization of Legionella pneumophila. Six of the isolates were subjected to whole-genome sequencing. Results: Sequencing of 14 clinical and 260 environmental samples revealed sequence type (ST) 23 as the main responsible strain for the infections. This ST was found in the spa pool, from where it spread to other hotel public …
Clinical Epidemiological Survey of Legionella pneumophila Infections in Italy
1986
A clinical epidemiological survey of Legionella pneumophila infections occurring in Italy between 1 December 1985 and 31 May 1986 was carried out to evaluate the incidence of sporadic, epidemic and nosocomial L. pneumophila pneumonia. A total of 355 cases of pneumonia were studied of which 11.5% were due to Gram positive bacteria, 11% were due to Gram negative bacteria, 7.9% were due to Mycoplasma pneumoniae, 4.5% were due to L. pneumophila and 8.5% were due to sundry aetiological agents. The remainder (45.6%) could not be diagnosed accurately. In addition, the anti L. pneumophila antibody titres were assessed. The results are discussed in terms of the occurrence of the disease in Italy an…
Geographical and temporal structures of Legionella pneumophila sequence types in comunitat valenciana (Spain), 1998 to 2013
2015
ABSTRACT Legionella pneumophila is an accidental human pathogen associated with aerosol formation in water-related sources. High recombination rates make Legionella populations genetically diverse, and nearly 2,000 different sequence types (STs) have been described to date for this environmental pathogen. The spatial distribution of STs is extremely heterogeneous, with some variants being present worldwide and others being detected at only a local scale. Similarly, some STs have been associated with disease outbreaks, such as ST578 or ST23. Spain is among the European countries with the highest incidences of reported legionellosis cases, and specifically, Comunitat Valenciana (CV) is the se…
Genetic variability in environmental isolates of Legionella pneumophila from Comunidad Valenciana (Spain).
2006
Summary Legionella pneumophila is associated to recurrent outbreaks in several Comunidad Valenciana (Spain) localities, especially in Alcoi, where social and climatic conditions seem to provide an excellent environment for bacterial growth. We have analysed the nucleotide sequences of three loci from 25 environmental isolates from Alcoi and nearby locations sampled over 3 years. The analysis of these isolates has revealed a substan- tial level of genetic variation, with consistent patterns of variability across loci, and comparable to that found in a large, European-wide sampling of clinical isolates. Among the tree loci studied, fliC showed the highest level of nucleotide diversity. The an…
Recombination drives genome evolution in outbreak-related Legionella pneumophila isolates.
2014
Legionella pneumophila is a strictly environmental pathogen and the etiological agent of legionellosis. It is known that non-vertical processes have a major role in the short-term evolution of pathogens, but little is known about the relevance of these and other processes in environmental bacteria. We report the whole-genome sequencing of 69 L. pneumophila strains linked to recurrent outbreaks in a single location (Alcoy, Spain) over 11 years. We found some examples where the genome sequences of isolates of the same sequence type and outbreak did not cluster together and were more closely related to sequences from different outbreaks. Our analyses identify 16 recombination events responsibl…
Legionellosis Outbreak Associated with Asphalt Paving Machine, Spain, 2009
2010
From 1999 through 2005 in Alcoi, Spain, incidence of legionellosis was continually high. Over the next 4 years, incidence was lower, but an increase in July 2009 led health authorities to declare an epidemic outbreak. A molecular epidemiology investigation showed that the allelic profiles for all Legionella pneumophila samples from the 2009 outbreak patients were the same, thus pointing to a common genetic origin for their infections, and that they were identical to that of the organism that had caused the previous outbreaks. Spatial-temporal and sequence-based typing analyses indicated a milling machine used in street asphalt repaving and its water tank as the most likely sources. As oppos…
Persistent Legionella Infection in a Patient after Bone Marrow Transplantation
2000
ABSTRACT We report on a patient who developed Legionella pneumonia after bone marrow transplantation. Despite appropriate antibiotic treatment, disease progressed. The patient developed a lung abscess from which Legionella and Prevotella were isolated. Cure was achieved by surgical resection. The resected material was sterile, but 16S ribosomal DNA analysis revealed Legionella DNA.
Acute respiratory failure onset in a patient with Guillain-Barré syndrome after Legionella-associated pneumonia: a case report.
2014
A 69-year-old white man was admitted because of a clinical history of persistent cough and fever. Chest x-rays showed bilateral lung infiltrates with air bronchograms, whereas the urine antigen test resulted positive for Legionella pneumophila. The next day, he was transferred to the intensive care unit and intubated because of severe renal and respiratory distress. Neurological examination revealed distal weakness and loss of deep tendon reflexes in lower extremities. Nerve conduction studies displayed severe demyelinating sensorimotor polyneuropathy, and plasmapheresis was therefore applied with mild improvement. Few weeks after, dysphagia occurred and electrophysiologic tests showed prog…
Mixed infection by Legionella pneumophila in outbreak patients.
2013
During the molecular epidemiological study of a legionellosis outbreak, we obtained sequence based typing (SBT) profiles from uncultured respiratory samples of 15 affected patients. We detected several distinct allelic profiles some of which were a mixture of alleles present in the more common profiles. Chromatograms from the sequences of one patient with mixed profile showed polymorphisms in several positions, which could result from the simultaneous presence of different Legionella variants in the sample. In order to test this possibility, we cloned PCR amplification products from six loci for two patients with a mixed profile and a patient with a pure profile. After obtaining around 20 s…
Direct sequencing of Legionella pneumophila from respiratory samples for sequence-based typing analysis.
2009
ABSTRACT We have developed a procedure to test the efficiency and reliability of sequencing of Legionella pneumophila genes directly from respiratory samples and have compared the results with those derived from cultured isolates. We tried to obtain the nucleotide sequences of six protein-coding loci included in the sequence-based typing scheme for Legionella pneumophila and three intergenic regions from 132 samples corresponding to 106 patients positive for urine antigen. A seminested PCR approach was used to amplify and sequence these nine loci directly from respiratory samples. Nucleotide sequences were directly obtained for 23 Legionella isolates and also for 66 respiratory secretions f…