Hotel takes the slow road to recovery – why not use rapid Legionella testing?

The Hannibal, Missouri Best Western Hotel which tested positive for Legionella and which is believed to have been responsible for 3 local cases of Legionnaires disease has undergone a super heated chlorination treatment to clean the hotel water system of the dangerous Legionella pneumophila bacterium which causes the disease. The water system of the hotel has been sampled again after the cleaning process was completed.

Hannibal Department of Health and Senior Services spokesman, Ryan Hobart said “Post remediation testing samples will be collected this week.” Hobart also indicated that the hotel could open again saying “When the test results are negative for Legionnaire’s the facility may reopen,” He further stated that “It is common for any laboratory to take seven to 10 days from the time of sample collection to report the results.”

This is a lot of time for a facility to be closed and for resources not to be earning income. While there may have been poor management of the water system and it is important that all care is taken to restore good working conditions it need not take this length of time. Rapid testing techniques would improve the overall management in at least two ways. Regualr checking of the hotel water system could have been easy and frequent, increasing the chances of a problem being spotted earlier. Rapid testing would also have improved the link between overall management and the testing process. How important is a routine test if results take 14 days to arrive.

Once the problem was identified and treatment carried out, rapid testing could have shown how effective the treatment was. If it was unsuccessful, the management would know quickly and a second treatment ordered. If successful the facility could be opened more quickly reducing down time.

Of course if regular testing was linked to overall management then the reputation of the hotel would also have been protected as well as public safety.