Is driving a car a risk for Legionnaires' disease?
Legionnaires' disease (LD) is a major cause of severe community-acquired pneumonia but the source and mode of transmission are not always apparent, especially in sporadic cases. We hypothesized that LD can be acquired from the air-conditioning systems of motor cars. Swabs were taken from the evaporator compartments of the air-conditioning system of scrapped cars. Healthy subjects who were mainly employees of regional transportation companies were tested for antibody to Legionella pneumophila serogroups 1-6; they also completed a questionnaire. Legionella species were detected in 11/22 scrapped cars by the loop-mediated isothermal amplification method. The prevalence of microplate agglutination titres > or =1:32 was significantly higher in subjects who sometimes used car air-conditioning systems. Although we did not prove a direct link between Legionella spp. in the car evaporator and LD, our findings point to a potential risk of car air-conditioning systems in LD, which needs further investigation.
Sakamoto
R
R
Department of Public Health, School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan. sakamoto@u-kyoto.jp
Ohno
A
A
Nakahara
T
T
Satomura
K
K
Iwanaga
S
S
Kouyama
Y
Y
Kura
F
F
Noami
M
M
Kusaka
K
K
Funato
T
T
Takeda
M
M
Matsubayashi
K
K
Okumiya
K
K
Kato
N
N
Yamaguchi
K
K
D000328:Adult; D000389:Air Conditioning / Q000009:adverse effects*; D001334:Automobile Driving; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D016952:Legionella pneumophila / Q000302:isolation & purification; D007877:Legionnaires' Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D016272:Occupational Health; D011159:Population Surveillance; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012698:Serologic Tests