Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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New rapid water test will help fight Legionnaires' disease across EMEA region
IDEXX has announced the launch across Europe, The Middle East and Africa, of Legiolert, a new culture testing method that enables building owners and facilities managers to simplify water testing and reduce the risk posed by Legionnaires' disease.
Legiolert is a highly sensitive method for the confirmed detection of Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila), in water and delivers results to decision-makers up to seven days faster than traditional testing methods.
Legionella pneumophila is the most common Legionella species in water and the primary cause of Legionnaires' disease, which is deadly for about one in 10 people who contract it and often causes long-lasting symptoms for survivors.
Launched in 2016 in North America, Legiolert improves public health response times by accurately and sensitively quantifying L. pneumophila in water, providing a confirmed result in seven days, versus up to 14 days with traditional culture methods. The new test does not require laborious colony counting or confirmation steps which reduce the need for training and the risk of interpretation errors and frees up time for laboratory staff.
Water microbiology consultant David Sartory recently concluded that the IDEXX Legiolert/Quanti-Tray test is superior to the standard method for quantifying L. pneumophila. His assessment was part of a peer reviewed study, 'Evaluation of a most probable number method for the enumeration of Legionella pneumophila from potable and related water samples', published in the April 2017 issue of Letters in Applied Microbiology.
Andrew Headland, senior business manager for IDEXX Water, explains: "Legiolert is so much more sensitive and accurate than current culture methods. Combined with the fact that the product is extremely easy to use and requires minimal training, we expect to see an increase in on-site testing for Legionella pneumophila as well as wide-scale adoption in laboratories."
The Legiolert test is based on a bacterial enzyme detection technology that signals the presence of L. pneumophila through utilisation of a substrate present in the Legiolert reagent. L. pneumophila cells grow rapidly and reproduce using the rich supply of amino acids, vitamins and other nutrients present in the Legiolert reagent. Actively growing strains of Legionella pneumophila use the added substrate to produce a brown colour indicator.
Though the disease is largely preventable, diagnosed cases of Legionnaires' disease in Europe reached their highest rate ever in 2014, with 13.5 notifications per million inhabitants, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. For hospitals, nursing homes, hotels and other high-risk buildings, testing drinking water, cooling towers and other building water systems is the only way to ensure an effective risk management plan against Legionella pneumophila.
28th September 2017