UK: The Edinburgh legionnaires' disease outbreak, which claimed three lives and infected a total of 101 people, is now officially over.
Announcing that the outbreak was officially over, Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that the Health and Safety Executive and Edinburgh City Council were continuing their investigations into the source of the outbreak. There are concerns, however, that the source of the outbreak may never be found.
Investigations suspect that the source of the exposure is most likely to have been the cluster of cooling towers in Wheatfield Road, Edinburgh.
Sixteen water cooling towers in the south-west of Edinburgh are said to have been treated with a range of chemicals to kill any bacteria. Despite extensive testing using standard methods, there is reportedly no microbiological evidence that positively confirms the presence of legionella pneumophila in any of the samples taken from any of the potential sources. Analysis of these samples is continuing.Body