Climate as vector: Legionnaires' spreading across UK

Independent (UK): Legionnaires' disease, the lethal bacterial lung infection that kills more than one in 10 of those that it infects, is spreading rapidly across Britain. Record levels of the infection were recorded in five of the first six months of this year and experts say the worst is still to come.

The Health Protection Agency, which released the figures yesterday, said it was investigating the rise. The disease is caught when infected water is inhaled as a vapour and causes pneumonia-like symptoms which can lead to death. Hotel showers and office air-conditioning systems are a particular risk. The latest outbreak occurred on the cruise ship Black Watch of the Fred Olsen line which was forced to return to Dover from the Baltic after two passengers contracted the infection.

The HPA figures show there were 163 cases up to the end of June, a third higher than the same period of 2006 (120 cases) and 60 per cent up on 2005 (103 cases)…

In Health Protection Report, published yesterday, the Agency said: "Over 200 cases occurred in August and September and are being investigated for links to the warm weather experienced in 2006 and possible climate change effects on the ecology of the disease." The weather since June this year has been very different to the previous two summers so it is "not clear" whether high numbers will be repeated this month and next, the report says.

However, the theory that climate change is driving the disease is borne out by the rapid growth in community-acquired infections which for the first time in 2007 have accounted for more than half (57 per cent) of the total. The remainder were in travellers and in hospital patients. The proportion of community infections has grown from 41 per cent in 2005 and 47 per cent in 2006…