More than 40% of the swimming pools in the Netherlands contain the bacteria that causes Legionnaire’s Disease. Government tests also found the bacteria in 9% of hotel swimming pools. Pool owners in the U.S. test their pools for many kinds of bacteria?but not for the kind that causes this sometimes fatal disease.
Testing began in the Netherlands after a deadly outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease in 1999 killed 32 people and made more than twice that number ill. Legionnaire’s was first discovered in an air conditioning unit in Philadelphia in 1976, when American Legion members staying at an infected hotel got sick and died.
The bacteria can be found in water that is warm enough for it to grow (90
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