An elderly man has died following a major outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in Cumbria and authorities say up to 100 people could be infected in what may be Britain's biggest outbreak of the disease.
Nineteen cases have been confirmed in the town of Barrow-in-Furness by the Irish Sea, the Morecombe Bay Hospitals Trust said. It said a further 36 patients were showing a "strong clinical suspicion of the disease". Nine people were in intensive care, the trust said in a statement.
All of the patients were being treated at Furness General Hospital, where an 89-year-old man died of the disease last night.
Legionnaires' disease is a form of pneumonia caused by bacteria living in water droplets. Symptoms are at first flu-like, followed by fever and chills, then a dry cough.
There is an incubation period of several days between infection and onset of the disease, which has a 15 percent fatality rate.
The incubation period means the number of cases could rise to at least one hundred, hospital officials said.
Mr Ian Cumming, chief executive of the Morecambe Bay Hospitals Trust, said the cause of the outbreak was likely to be a contaminated water source, such as air conditioning.
Health officials investigating possible sources were focusing on the town council's entertainment complex which has a water-cooled air conditioning plant and is located near a cluster of confirmed cases of the disease.
The disease was named in 1976 when an outbreak killed 29 people at an American Legion Convention in Philadelphia.
The first cases of Legionnaires' in Britain were detected in 1977. An outbreak in Stafford in 1985 infected 68 people, of whom 23 died.