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Hospital checks find legionnaires’ bug

An inspection of water cleanliness at 12 major hospitals has found that the drinking water and water cooling systems in six of them contain bacteria known to cause the highly infectious legionnaires’ disease, an Executive Yuan official in charge of consumers’ rights said yesterday.

Wu Cheng-hsue (吳政學) said legionnaires’ symptoms include fever, chills, a cough and sometimes pneumonia. Some also display symptoms such as muscle aches, headache, tiredness, loss of appetite or body coordination and occasionally diarrhea and vomiting.

He said the inspection was conducted by National Kaohsiung Normal University and local health bureau officials under instructions from the Consumer Protection Commission under the Executive Yuan.

The Department of Health will make sure the hospitals make improvements, Wu said. The Consumer Protection Commission has asked the six hospitals to examine their pneumonia patients to find out whether their diseases are related to legionnaires’, Wu said.
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