Legionnaires' tackled at hospital

The source of the Legionnaires' outbreak has not been discovered

An investigation into a source of an outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease at an Essex hospital is continuing.

Two patients have been treated for the pneumonia-like disease at Basildon Hospital after an outbreak last week.

The hospital said tests to find the source were inconclusive and patients were responding to treatment well.

The Patients' Association claimed the hospital should have issued a public warning to other patients about the outbreak of the illness.

Vanessa Bourne, of the Patients' Association, told BBC News: "Public confidence needs to be at its strongest and telling people, and warning people, and alerting people to all of this, so that they can be responsible patients is essential in this situation."

'Patients already infected'

Legionnaires' Disease is commonly caught by ingesting water vapour, containing the bacteria that causes the condition, from water systems such as air conditioning units.

Alan Whittle, chief executive of Basildon Hospital, said: "We have done now comprehensive tests throughout the entire water system at the hospital and all results bar one or two have come back completely negative.

"Those with a positive result are what are called very low positives - which means very low risk.

"They're not in the areas of the hospital's water system where we know these two patients will have visited.

"I'd like to reassure patients that it's accepted that in water systems, in large complex buildings like our hospital, there is no way that we can actually eradicate the bacteria.

"We do take every precaution to control it and we are constantly testing our water system to make sure that it is safe.

"At the moment we cannot discount the remote possibility that the disease was actually acquired outside of the hospital setting and that the patients therefore came into the hospital already infected."