Legionnaire's diseaseIn 1977, the isolation of the bacterium Legionella pneumophila that was the cause of Legionnaire's Disease, was described in a scientific paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA*. They had first announced that they had sufficient laboratory evidence to implicate a bacterium on 18 Jan 1977 as responsible for an outbreak of this disease in Philadelphia in 1976, largely among people attending a state convention of the American Legion, which led to the name "Legionnaires' Disease." After the bacterium causing the illness was named, the name of the illness was changed to legionellosis.[Image: Legionella pneumophila multiplying inside a cultured human lung fibroblast. Multiple intracellular bacilli, including dividing bacilli, are visible in longitudinal and cross section. Transmission electron micrograph.] |
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