Why should travel-associated Legionnaires disease be a priority?
About 21% of all Legionnaires’ disease reported to the CDC between 1980 and 1999 was travel-associated-and that number is rising as reporting improves. Legionnaires’ disease is important to diagnose and to report because its identification implies the presence of an environmental source to which other susceptible individuals are likely to be exposed. Clusters of Legionnaires’ disease associated with travel to hotels or aboard cruise ships are rarely detected by individual clinicians or health departments; travelers typically disperse from the source of infection before developing symptoms. Therefore, a travel history should be actively sought from patients with community-acquired pneumonia and Legionella testing should be performed for those who have traveled in the 2 weeks before onset of symptoms. Because of the multi state nature of travel in the U. S., national-level surveillance is necessary to detect outbreaks of travel-associated Legionnaires’ disease. CDC relies upon state and
