![A gloved hand pulls out a test tube labeled "Legionella"](https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2023/03/n21156333/jcr:content/image.img.cq5dam.thumbnail.500.500.jpg/1679080376704.jpg)
Enquirer: Legionella sprouts in water more than numbers show
After three cases of Legionella were reported at a Cincinnati-area hospital, Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, provided his expertise on the bacteria to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Patients infected with Legionella bacteria can develop Legionnaires' disease, a pneumonia. Fichtenbaum said Legionella is more common in water systems across the U.S. than you may think.
According to Fichtenbaum, hospitals are often more susceptible to the bacteria due to the many ways water is used at hospitals.
"In factories and other office buildings, people use water to wash their hands, they use water in the toilets, and then maybe they drink some tap water. (Hospitals) need water for a lot of things." Fichtenbaum told the Enquirer. "We need water for ice machines, we need water that goes through ventilator systems, there's water used in operating rooms.
"We're also cutting people open, and people are sick and breathing things in," he continued. "It's a much more complicated environment."
Read the Enquirer story. (Note: Subscription or login may be required to view story.)
Featured photo at top courtesy of iStock.
Related Stories
UC’s Ohio Innocence Project helps earn freedom for Cleveland man after more than 14 years in prison
May 4, 2021
UC's Ohio Innocence Project helped earn the freedom of Michael Sutton, one of two Cleveland men convicted in 2006 of the shooting of two people and the attempted shooting of a Cleveland police officer when both suspects were 17 years old.
SELF: 6 things you should know about exercise and the COVID-19 vaccines
May 4, 2021
Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, of the UC College of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, was one of the sources cited in an article published by SELF on six things to know about exercise and COVID-19 vaccines.
Vote in the 2021 Staff Senate election
May 4, 2021
The University of Cincinnati Staff Senate serves as an advisory body to the president and university administration and provides an equitable representative voice for university staff.