Hi, you can still encourage them to follow our L8,especially if they store cold water (considering their hot and humid weather). The Public Health Agency of Canada (phac website) states that legionella is present in Asia. China too does have health and safety laws, and I believe IOSH has members' networking groups in China (I advised a previous employer to join up!) However, their regulation and compliance might not be as stringent as ours... If you are working with this company or they are taking your consultancy advice, they should listen (I would hope). Therefore I would strongly advise them to follow L8. The lack of reported cases may well be due to a lack of knowledge. There is concern in the UK (although I can't remember where I read it - perhaps on a training course) that many cases of legionella are mis-diagnosed as pneumonia. I hope this helps :)

The current estimates are that we're missing cases by around one order of magnitude. So the 350 or so a year may really be up to 3500. And that's with raised awareness and testing by hospitals. Bear in mind that confirmation of a case is typically by culture (from a hard to obtain sputum sample) or by a specific urinary antigen test (Lp sero 1 only though). If they aren't really looking for it in China (or have the laboratory testing to back up looking for it) then its no surprise that numbers may be low. Not to say that there is a lot of it because clearly the data doesn't support that conclusion. Lp 1 is a particular issue for Europe (hence the specific test) but may not be the species that is as prevalent in China. That could also be part of the issue. But that's all supposition as I really have no idea!

Thanks guys, Steve, I was aware of the fact having been there four times so far; it was only when I started to question why there was little comprehension did I start to dig deeper and post here - previously I have just reported on the audits and RAMS etc. Jay I am primarily concerned with our employees that we send there on a regular basis to support our suppliers, I recognise that I have little influence over there - having said that all of the suppliers have improved since last audit and seem to be very keen to learn. I will furnish them with a PDF of L8 - or at least the link to the HSE website :-) Cheers Stuart

I'd give the showers a miss at the start of the season rather than the lobby fountain....although your colleagues might complain - no matter how much you vaunted your lack of pneumonia. ;)