Legionella research

Some micro-organisms which you can come across within buildings can cause severe infections. An example is the Legionella Pneumophila bacteria. This is the main initiator of legionnaires disease.

Over the last couple of years various epidemics have been described all over Europe, mainly in hospitals and hotels but also in office buildings. The Legionella bacteria can multiply explosively in cooling towers and the circulating systems of the warm water supply. Several types of companies and institutions are bound by law to perform periodical checks for the presence of Legionella in their water systems:

• Hospital facilities and comparable institutions
• Buildings with a lodging / housing function
• Crisis centres for refugees / asylum centres
• Buildings with a prison function
• Bathing establishments
• Campsites
• Marinas / yacht-basins

For these companies and institutions it is also compulsory to draft up a management-plan complete with a log and a risk analysis. Please visit the related pages on this website for more information.

An ever growing number of companies who are not bound by any legislation perform checks for Legionella. This move is prompted by the need for security. In the waterleidingbesluit (Dutch drinking-water quality legislation) and under the zorgplicht (duty of care) legally binding rules regarding the responsibility of the employer to offer a clean system are drawn up.

Summarizing this means that in these cases there is no obligation to perform Legionella tests but when a contamination occurs the employer can be held liable for the damages.

BioLab can perform periodical, RvA-accredited sampling against very sharp tariffs.