Effect of Legionella Testing Patterns on the Apparent Epidemiology of Legionnaires' Disease in Australia

Background: Rifampicin (RIF), also known as rifampin, a bactericidal antibiotic having broad antibacterial activity against various gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria act by inhibiting DNA dependent RNA polymerase. RIF has been administered in different dosage forms like tablets, capsules, injections, oral suspension, powder etc. for the treatment of several types of bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, Mycobacterium avium complex, leprosy and Legionnaires’ disease. Introduction: To ensure the quality, efficacy, safety and effectiveness of RIF drug product, effective and reliable analytical methods are utmost important. To quantify RIF for quality control or pharmacokinetic purposes, alternative analytical methods have been developed along with the official compendial methods. Method: In this review paper, an extensive literature survey was done to gather information on various analytical instrumental methods used so far for RIF. Result: These methods were high-performance liquid chromatography (42%), hyphenated techniques (18%), spectroscopy (15%), high-performance thin-layer chromatography or thin-layer chromatography (7%) and miscellaneous (18%). Conclusion: All these methods were selective and specific for the RIF analysis.

Download Full-text

A Legionnaires’ Disease Cluster in a Private Building in Italy

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18136922 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (13) ◽

pp. 6922

Author(s):

Maria Luisa Ricci ◽

Maria Cristina Rota ◽

Maria Grazia Caporali ◽

Antonietta Girolamo ◽

Maria Scaturro

Keyword(s):

Severe Pneumonia ◽

Control Measures ◽

Health Concern ◽

Human Consumption ◽

Domestic Water ◽

Quality Of Water ◽

Legionnaires Disease ◽

Prevention And Control Measures ◽

Private Homes ◽

And Control

Legionnaires’ disease (LD) is a severe pneumonia caused by bacteria belonging to the genus Legionella. This is a major public health concern and infections are steadily increasing worldwide. Several sources of infection have been identified, but they have not always been linked to human isolates by molecular match. The well-known Legionella contamination of private homes has rarely been associated with the acquisition of the disease, although some patients never left their homes during the incubation period. This study demonstrated by genomic matching between clinical and environmental Legionella isolates that the source of an LD cluster was a private building. Monoclonal antibodies and sequence-based typing were used to type the isolates, and the results clearly demonstrated the molecular relationship between the strains highlighting the risk of contracting LD at home. To contain this risk, the new European directive on the quality of water intended for human consumption has introduced for the first time Legionella as a microbiological parameter to be investigated in domestic water systems. This should lead to a greater attention to prevention and control measures for domestic Legionella contamination and, consequently, to a possible reduction in community acquired LD cases.

Download Full-text