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Recommended Precautions for Patients with Legionnaires' Disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

William R. Jarvis
William R. Jarvis*
Affiliation:
Hospital Infections Program, Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control, Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, Georgia
*
Hospital Infections Program, Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control, Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, GA 30333
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Abstract

As diagnostic techniques for the identification of Legionella species have become readily available, recognition of the pneumonic form of Legionellosis has increased. In particular, cases of hospital-acquired Legionella pneumophila are being identified and this has led to concern over possible person-to-person transmission. In most epidemiologic investigations where a source has been identified, water has been implicated. Person-to-person transmission has not been convincingly documented. Therefore, we discourage expensive or inconvenient special precautions for patients hospitalized with Legionnaires' Disease. Rather, we recommend that such patients be placed in secretion precautions until effective antimicrobial therapy has eradicated the organism.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 3 , Issue 5 , October 1982 , pp. 401 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1982

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