2014’s legionnaires’ disease outbreak in portugal - an intensive care, single-center. 29 patient case series

Legionnaires' disease, a form of severe pneumonia caused by a Gram negative aerobic intracellular bacteria, was first recognised during an American Legion convention in Philadelphia in July, 1976 [1]. The second largest outbreak of Legionnaires' disease ever registered, encompassing 334 microbiologically documented cases was identified between 7 and 30 of November 2014 in Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal [2] (more than three times the usual annually reported incidence of the disease in the whole country). We report our case series of 29 critically ill patients with Legionella pneumonia admitted to the Hospital Vila Franca de Xira intensive care unit (ICU), located at the epicentre of the outbreak.