"This disease is a real mess": two cases of Legionnaires' disease diagnosed in a new residence in Fréjus

This is one occupant the Verdania estate could have done without. Last Friday, residents of this residence in the Caïs district received a newsletter in their inbox from the Regional Health Agency (ARS) informing them of the "diagnosis of Legionnaires' disease in a person living in the condominium."

The sick person has been hospitalized since last Thursday, but this is actually the second case in a few weeks, since the first contamination was detected in May. While the origin of this contamination has not yet been formally established, the ARS emphasizes that "analyses of the quality of domestic hot water will be carried out, followed by curative disinfection of the water networks and post-disinfection control analyses."

This has many residents now very concerned. Pierre Baudin, the spokesperson for a residents' group, said: "It's a new residence that's less than two years old, and this disease normally becomes embedded in the limescale in old installations. Have routine checks been carried out? Probably not, otherwise we wouldn't be in this situation."

"Many people are still not aware"

And this 67-year-old retiree points to a lack of transparency on the part of the residence's managers, landlords and trustee: " Why aren't there any notices posted within the residence? This disease is a real mess [read elsewhere Editor's note] and many people are still not aware of it because the information was sent by email and there are a lot of elderly people here who don't read their emails. Not to mention the fact that we have a major internet outage at the moment."

For its part, the landlord, who owns the building in which a tenant was diagnosed on Friday, states that "the agency manager informed the tenants on Friday [by email] to save time and without waiting for the notice to be posted. The condominium manager, also notified by the ARS, was supposed to communicate by posting to all the co-owners of the residence."

Samples and disinfection are scheduled

CDC habitat also emphasizes that it has "initiated actions and measures in coordination with the ARS and the trustee, with samples taken from cold and hot water and disinfection without waiting for the results of the samples. New samples will be taken immediately after disinfection and again in one to two months."

This information was confirmed by the ARS, which also indicated that, regarding the first case, analyses had been carried out at its request by the condominium manager. These "showed the presence of legionella in the patient's apartment. Chemical disinfection of the network was then carried out. To date, the post-treatment monitoring results have not detected the presence of legionella." Despite these results, the bacteria clearly still appears to be present.

Finally, according to our information, a notice board was issued by the trustee when the first case emerged. But was it visible to everyone? In any case, Pierre Baudin assures that many residents were unaware before his group began going door-to-door in recent days. "We have the impression that everything was done to ensure this went under the radar," he fumes. Demanding "a health inventory of all the housing units" and promising "the creation of a file so that the person responsible can answer" for this failure.

How to prevent contamination?

Legionnaires' disease is a lung infection caused by the bacterium Legionella pneumophila , which is naturally present in water but can proliferate in domestic hot water systems. Contamination occurs mainly through the respiratory tract (inhalation of contaminated water droplets) . The disease begins with a flu-like condition with fever and cough that can progress to pneumonia. It mainly affects adults, especially those with predisposing factors: age, smoking, diabetes, immunodeficiency, chronic respiratory diseases, etc. It is fatal in approximately 10% of cases.

To protect against the bacteria, if suspected, the ARS recommends removing the showerhead and washing directly with the hose. In addition, it is advisable to run the water for one to two minutes before using it. In all cases, the ARS suggests regularly descaling and disinfecting aerators and showerheads with vinegar and bleach, as well as flushing the systems to prevent water stagnation and maintaining them to combat scaling and corrosion.