NSW Government Funds Cutting-Edge Research to Combat Legionnaires’ Disease

IAN ROGERS

The NSW Government has granted $500,000 to NSW Health Pathology at Westmead Hospital to support groundbreaking research aimed at enhancing the detection and response to Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks.

Legionnaires’ disease is a lung infection caused by inhaling water droplets contaminated with legionella bacteria. A key source of these bacteria is cooling water systems in air conditioning units. Under the Public Health Regulation 2022, these systems must be safely managed to prevent bacterial growth and transmission.

Identifying the exact source of a legionella outbreak can be challenging.

Contamination in cooling systems is often brief, and fne water droplets carrying bacteria can infect nearby individuals or contaminate adjacent systems, complicating the tracing process.

NSW Health Pathology will use the grant to develop a genomic surveillance system that will signifcantly streamline the process of matching samples and identifying outbreak sources. By integrating genomics technology with existing public health and environmental surveillance, the research aims to reduce the time needed to confrm clusters of legionellosis and uncover links between cases that might otherwise go undetected.

The project will be conducted at the Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research at Westmead, under the leadership of Professor Vitali Sintchenko (NSW Health Pathology and Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute) and Dr. Eby Sim (University of Sydney’s School of Medical Sciences).

The research team is collaborating with Health Protection NSW and Public Health Units in the Western Sydney and South Eastern Sydney Local Health Districts to ensure a coordinated approach to tackling this public health issue.

For more information on Legionnaires’ disease, visit the NSW Health fact sheet.