Evaluation of legiolert for quantification of Legionella pneumophila from bath water samples

Abstract

Testing for Legionella spp. in public bath water samples is regulated in Japan. In this study, we used a total of 132 public bath water samples to compare the performance of Legiolert® and the conventional plate culture method for the enumeration of Legionella pneumophila. When Legiolert and plate culturing were performed at the same detection limit, L. pneumophila was detected in 26.5% of 132 samples by Legiolert, while 12.9% contained Legionella spp. (11.4% contained L. pneumophila) based on the plate culture method. Moreover, results of 83.3% of the total samples were consistent between the two methods, meaning that they were both positive or both negative. In this study, we demonstrated that Legiolert is a simpler and more effective method of monitoring for L. pneumophila in bath water samples.