A 77-year-old Whitchurch man has died in hospital of suspected Legionnaires’ disease, days after he was admitted.
The man, who has not been named, died yesterday and was one of five patients - including another from Whitchurch - who have been treated at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for the illness since the beginning of September.
He was admitted to the hospital on Monday.
Samples have been sent to a Legionella testing laboratory and the death has been reported to the coroner.
The man had been out of the country for one week in the middle of August, but health experts say that, for the purposes of their on-going investigation into the other cases, they are assuming that the infection may have been acquired locally.
Dr Rob Carr, a Shropshire consultant in communicable disease control with the Health Protection Agency, said today: “This patient had been abroad, but as we cannot be certain that he caught the infection overseas we are investigating possible local sources.
“Clusters of Legionnaires’ disease cases were reported throughout the country during July and August and it may very well be possible that our local cases have been due to some common underlying reason, such as unusual weather conditions. We just don’t know.”
Officials remain baffled as to how three of the Royal Shrewsbury patients - Peter Edgerton of Whitchurch, Paul Coulter of Whittington, near Oswestry, and Graham Williams of Montgomery, contracted the disease. All three had to be admitted to intensive care.
Mr Edgerton and Mr Coulter are still recovering in hospital but Mr Williams has been discharged.
A fourth patient, who has not been named, was also admitted. He is understood to have contracted the illness overseas but has not been treated in intensive care.
Dr Carr said: “Legionnaires’ disease cannot be passed from person to person, but is usually caught by inhaling fine mists of water contaminated with the organism.
“We have looked at possible sources such as water towers in localities where patients lived and worked without finding any obvious cause of infection.”
As part of the investigation, all patients in Shropshire with X-ray evidence of pneumonia in August and September have been identified and where appropriate further laboratory tests have been carried out.
Through these tests, only one further possible case was found, but this patient was not admitted to hospital and his tests were not conclusive for Legionella infection.
By Health Correspondent Dave Morris
Full story in today’s Shropshire Star.
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