Publications

are health care workers at risk for infection during an outbreak of nosocomial legionnaires' disease?	we studied data from 500 health care workers to answer the question: are health care workers at risk for infection during an outbreak of nosocomial legionnaires' disease? these workers were employed at a hospital where eight cases of nosocomial legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 pneumonia occurred over a 4-week period. the source was potable water. acute-phase blood samples were collected on the day the water supply was decontaminated, convalescent samples were collected 4 to 6 weeks later from ...	1986	3641543
nosocomial legionnaires' disease: lessons from a four-year prospective study.	we studied all cases of nosocomial pneumonia at our 800-bed tertiary care hospital from september 1983 to september 1987. of the 813 cases of nosocomial pneumonia, 31 (3.8%) were definite (isolation of organism or fourfold rise in titer) and 21 (2.5%) were possible cases (single or stable antibody titer of greater than or equal to 1:256) of legionnaires' disease. the definite cases involved a more severe form of pneumonia and a significantly higher mortality rate--64% versus 14% (p less than 0.0 ...	1991	2053716
diverse populations of legionella pneumophila present in the water of geographically clustered institutions served by the same water reservoir.	we cultured potable water from seven institutions (six hospitals and one medical school) every 2 weeks for 6 months for legionella pneumophila. all of the institutions were located close to each other and received water from the same freshwater source. two institutions (the medical school and hospital f, a maternity hospital) never had l. pneumophila isolated from their potable water. the remaining five had 17 to 72% of their water samples positive for l. pneumophila. most of the isolates were s ...	1992	1551972
each water outlet is a unique ecological niche for legionella pneumophila.	we determined the natural history of the colonization of our hospital's potable water by culturing water approximately biweekly from 20 sites throughout the hospital for 4 years. overall, 545 (24.7%) of the 2200 samples grew legionella pneumophila. during hyperchlorination, 11.7% of the samples were positive while 41.6% were positive in the absence of chlorination. there was no seasonal trend towards positivity, but there was marked inter-site variation in the semi-quantitative culture results. ...	1992	1582468
legionellaceae in the potable water of nova scotia hospitals and halifax residences.	water was cultured from 39 of 48 hospitals (7 halifax hospitals and 32 non-halifax hospitals) in the province of nova scotia and from 90 residences (74 private dwellings, 16 apartments) in halifax to determine the frequency of legionella contamination. six of seven halifax hospitals had legionellaceae isolated from their potable water compared with 3 of 32 non-halifax hospitals (p < 0.0001). overall, 19 of 59 (32%) of the water samples from halifax hospitals were positive for legionellae compare ...	1994	8119354
characterization and cloning of a 37.6-kb plasmid carried by legionella pneumophila recovered from patients and hospital water over a 12-year period.	for 12 years, strains of legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 harbouring a 37.6-kb (23 mda) plasmid have predominated among patient and potable water isolates at the victoria general hospital, halifax, n.s. plasmid dna recovered from 24 strains isolated between 1983 and 1995 was digested with the restriction endonucleases ecori, hindiii, kpni, pvuii, xbai, and bamhi. the distribution of cutting sites indicated that the 23-mda size group had remained essentially unchanged during this period, sugges ...	1997	9090107