Doreen Davies was in a coma for 10 days after falling ill during the Legionnaires’ outbreak.

Mrs Davies, of Hope Street in Barrow, fell gravely ill and was admitted to Furness General Hospital on July 24, 2002.

She was put into intensive care until the Legionella antigen was confirmed on August 2 and was put on a ventilator and received blood transfusions after developing respiratory and renal failure.

Due to a lack of intensive care beds because of the crisis, she had to be transferred to Chorley intensive care unit by air ambulance.

Almost 10 years have passed since that fateful day, but the former electronics factory worker has not forgotten the role the air ambulance played in saving her life, and used a special milestone to raise money for them.

Mrs Davies asked friends to donate to the North West Air Ambulance instead of giving her presents for her 60th birthday, raising £400.

She told the Evening Mail: “I was so poorly that they sent for my dad and said there is nothing more that we can do.

“But I was taken to Chorley by air ambulance and from there I picked up.

“I don’t remember going, but I don’t know what would have happened without them.

(Read More) Source: North West Evening Mail

The Barrow in Furness Legionnaires' outbreak in 2002 is the largest of it's kind in the UK (click on link to read more), the after effects of which have been felt for the last 10 years and contracting Legionnaires' disease has much longer-lasting effects than those of just the infection and recovery periods, for more information or to find out more about our services call:

Vectair Environmental Ltd on 0118 981 7437 or get in touch via our contact page.

A Scottish firm which has developed the world's fastest test to detect the deadly Legionnaires' disease secures fresh funding.

Albagaia will use some of the £500,000 of new funding for an export drive for its testing kits.

The company's test can detect the Legionella bacteria in 25 minutes compared with up to two weeks in a traditional lab.

The Linlithgow-based firm also plans to develop its water treatment systems.

Legionnaires' is a bacterial disease that causes a lung infection or pneumonia and is transmitted by contaminated water, especially from heating or water supply systems.

Albagaia has developed smartphone software which speeds up the process of reading test results.

The firm said it had received inward investment of £240,000, half from Equity Gap angel group and half from Scottish Enterprise's (SE) Scottish Investment Bank.

That funding package has unlocked a further £250,000 in research grants.

Albagaia chief executive Graham Tyrie said: "This demonstration of faith in Albagaia's future prospects allows us to fund both water treatment and our innovative smartphone reader software which reads test results independently and transmits them to a central database."

(Read More) Source: BBC Scotland

As a company we are committed to researching the use of innovative products and services geared to detecting and controlling the risks associated with Legionnella control, for more information on any of our products or services call:

Vectair Environmental Ltd on 0118 981 7437 or get in touch via our contact page.

FOUR doctors implicated in the deaths of three newborn babies from Legionnaire’s disease at a Nicosia private clinic in 2008 yesterday pleaded guilty to not upkeeping maintenance regulations, leading to the water distributing system becoming infected with the deadly bacteria.

The Hippocration Clinic’s director and three of the nursery and maternity ward’s doctors are facing charges in relation to the circumstances leading to the hospitalisation of 11 infants and the death of three, all born at the clinic in December 2008.

According to state prosecutor Rikkos Mappourides, all four doctors pleaded guilty yesterday and now await trial at Nicosia District Court on June 27.

“Last week, the three doctors admitted to one charge – that they acted in violation of the law by not exercising the necessary maintenance, which led to Legionnaire’s developing in the system,” said Mappourides.

He added that the clinic’s director, who arrived from the US to attend yesterday’s trial, also admitted to two charges to the same effect – one based on the law for hospitals’ operation and another on regulations for health and safety in the workplace.

“As they admitted the general charges – that they didn’t exercise the necessary checks resulting in the legionnaires developing in the system and affecting and killing the babies – the specific charges regarding each and every child have been dropped,” said Mappourides.

Eleven infants born between December 18 and 22, 2008, were admitted to the intensive care unit of Makarios state hospital in Nicosia a few days following their release from the Hippocration.

They were diagnosed with pneumonia, caused by Legionnaire’s disease.

Three died and one was put on a respirator due to severe pneumonia although the baby recovered and was later released from hospital. It was reported that the parents of one of the three babies who died had been trying to conceive for 15 years, eventually celebrating the birth of their long-anticipated baby after numerous IVF attempts.

The three infant deaths provoked public outrage, after it emerged that bacteria causing the disease were found in a humidifier as well as parts of the Hippocration’s water distributing system – all because the appropriate maintenance measures weren’t taken.

(Read More) Source: Cyprus Mail

Whilst the maintenance of water systems is not usually a duty you would associate with a doctor, the 'Responsible Person' (in this case the clinic's Directors who were also the doctors) have a duty on site for 'a suitable and sufficient assessment is required to identify and assess the risk of exposure to legionella bacteria from work activities and water systems on the premises and any necessary precautionary measures' as defined in ACoP L8, for more information or to arrange a Risk Assessment for your premises call:

Vectair Environmental Ltd on 0118 981 7437 or get in touch via our contact page.

Offshore wind farm workers have stopped taking showers and drinking water over fears they are at risk of disease.

Legionella bacteria has been found in water onboard the Regina Baltica which houses 100 men working on the Sherringham Shole wind farm.

The bacteria, often found in water storage tanks, can lead to Legionnaire’s disease, a potentially fatal form of pneumonia.

The ship made an emergency docking at Harwich International Port on Wednesday to tackle the problem which stopped some passengers from eating and drinking tap water for three days.

Latvian ship Regina Baltica travels out to sea for three weeks at a time so engineers and labourers from across Europe can work on the wind farm near Norfolk.

Employees claim they have been struggling with sickness and diarrhoea during the last two months of work and are worried about the latest revelation.

(Read More) Source: Essex County Standard

If you have any further queries or wish to know how to 'safely' tackle the control of legionella bacteria call:

Vectair Environmental Ltd on 0118 981 7437 or get in touch via our contact page.

CHANGING rooms at the Racecourse in Northampton, which cost £1 million to build, have been closed for the third time in five years after another outbreak of the bacteria which causes Legionnaires’ disease.

The changing rooms, which were jointly funded by the Northampton Borough Council and the Football Foundation, were officially opened by Labour Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe in July 2007 and he described them at the time as “state-of-the-art.”

But the changing rooms remained closed to the public until December 2007, after a dispute between Anglian Water and the borough council about the chlorine levels in the water supply.

In February 2010, the changing rooms were then closed again for four weeks after the legionella bacteria was detected.

The bacteria, which if inhaled can cause the potentially fatal Legionnaires’ disease, was detected again in February this year and the changing rooms were closed for a third time. Councillor John Caswell (Con, New Duston), cabinet member for the environment, said the council was working on “long-term arrangements” to prevent the problem happening again.

He said: “External specialists have been working on this and in order to get the facility back into use as soon as possible, we anticipate reopening half of the changing rooms and toilets during the course of next week using cold mains water only.

“There will be eight changing rooms open, toilets and hand basins will be working, but the showers will be out of service.

“We are sorry for the continued inconvenience but people’s safety remains our top priority.

“We are actively working on long-term arrangements to prevent this problem re-occurring and to make a wider range of facilities available in the building once more.”

Kevin Evans, secretary of the Racecourse bowls league, said the lack of toilets was a serious inconvenience for the people who would be playing in bowls matches during the next few weeks.

He said: “It is obvious that a lot of our players are going to need toilet facilities during the season.

“It is ridiculous that after several months through our off-season this has not been fixed.”

(Read More) Source: Northampton Chronicle (via @simonfrench137 on Twitter)

The significance of this story is that this legionella case was attributed to a new building whereas most people associate it only with older buildings and water systems. For more information on obtaining a quote for Water Risk Assessment of your premises or for any other of our services call:

Vectair Environmental Ltd on 0118 981 7437 or get in touch via our contact page.