The outbreak of Legionnaires' disease is a fifth victim in Portugal

Since Saturday, 233 cases were diagnosed. 38 of these patients are in intensive care. And a fifth person has died from the bacterial disease. The focus of the outbreak of legionellosis, whose origin remains unknown, would be at Vila Franca de Xira, about thirty kilometers from Lisbon. As a precaution, cooling towers around the main plants should be disinfected. The government's priority is to find the home of the lung infection that is not contagious. However, the bacteria responsible for Legionnaires' disease is spread by inhaling contaminated water particles, particularly through air conditioning systems.

Legionnaires' disease, discovered in 1976 at a convention of veterans in the United States in which 29 people died, is an infection that causes high fever, dry cough and pneumonia.