BRITAIN: Some 74 people were undergoing medical treatment yesterday as Britain faced its worst outbreak of the deadly Legionnaire's disease for 17 years, health authorities said.
The number of confirmed cases jumped to 45 on Sunday from 39 on Saturday, and a further 29 people were suspected to have contracted the disease.
An 89-year-old man died on Friday, the first death from the outbreak at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, northwest England.
Officials said more deaths were possible, but dismissed as "over-pessimistic" speculation in the media that as many as 15 or 20 people could die.
Of the 74 people receiving treatment, 15 were in intensive care with four of those "giving cause for concern", the hospital dealing with most of the cases said in a statement.
Fears were growing that the outbreak could rival that of 1985, when 68 people were infected and 23 people died in the English town of Stafford.
"The hospital continues to cope well with the number of patients admitted from this outbreak," Mr Ian Cumming, chief executive of the Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS Trust said in a statement.
"We continue to have enough beds available for all projected admissions." But he added the availability of intensive-care beds was being reviewed on an hourly basis.
Mr Cumming said on Saturday that 10 people a day were being admitted to hospital with possible Legionnaire's symptoms, and this was expected to continue for 12 days.
"Incubation is between five and 10 days ... it is usually six or seven days before symptoms show," he said.
Previous outbreaks have claimed the lives of up to 20 percent of those infected with the pneumonia-like illness.
Prof John Ashton, public health director for the northwest region, said on Saturday that the suspected source of the Legionnaire's outbreak, a council-run entertainment complex in Barrow, had been shut down.
At a news conference yesterday, Dr Nick Gent, a doctor working on the outbreak, said tests on a water treatment plant at the complex - Forum 28 - appeared to confirm it as the source.
"We have some early information identifying what may be this organism, the Legionnaire's bacteria, in the water treatment plant at Forum 28," he said.
"That does not necessarily prove conclusively that this water treatment plant was the cause of this outbreak, but it gives us very real hope that we have identified the cause." Barrow council chief executive Mr Tom Campbell said the council had suspended a technical manager at the entertainment complex.
Legionnaire's disease, named in 1976 when an outbreak killed 29 people at an American Legion Convention in Philadelphia, is a form of pneumonia. Symptoms are at first flu-like, followed by fever and chills, then a dry cough.- (Reuters)