ECDC publish Legionnaires’ disease annual epidemiological report for 2018

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has published its annual Legionnaires’ disease epidemiological report for 2018.

Legionnaires’ disease remains an uncommon and mainly sporadic respiratory infection, with an overall notification rate of 2.2 per 100,000 of the population for the EU/EEA in 2018. There is heterogeneity in notification rates between EU/EEA countries, with the highest rate reported by Slovenia (7.7 per 100,000). The annual notification rate increased continuously over the period 2014–2018, from 1.3 per 100,000 of the population in 2014, to 2.2 in 2018. There was a 23% increase in the number of cases in 2018 compared with 2017. Four countries, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, accounted for 71% of all notified cases in 2018. Males aged 65 years and above were most affected (8.5 per 100,000).

Source: ECDC, 23 July 2020