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In the mid 1990s, when the theme of indoor air quality started to gain
importance in Brazil, air conditioning systems became a focal point on
the subject with relation to cleaning maintenance and conservation. Great
emphasis of the televisionmedia and national press was given to the fact that
those in technical and legal charge needed to maintain the HVAC system in
healthy conditions to the healthiness of those occupying the environment.
Many of the professionals in the air conditioning area complained that such
a negative exposure of the industry was a fad or even marketing actions.
In that controversial context, a character came about to inflame even
more the opinions:
Legionella
bacteria.
It was by the middle of 1998, in a national broadcasting, prime time,
on the main news show of the Brazilian television that José Serra, who then
was Minister of Health, announced that he would form a study group to
release a legislation requiring that those responsible for air conditioning
systems all over the country needed to keep the equipment clean in order
to make no harm to the health of the Brazilian population.
This was because his colleague, the Minister of Communications,
Sérgio Motta, had just passed away and the great villain to cause it was
Legionella
bacteria coming from the air conditioning system at the office of
the ministry in Brasília.
Being a controversial issue to these days, the fact is that the minister
then was already having health problems for many years. With hypertension,
diabetes, cardiovascular disease, he had also a progressive respiratory
limitation, which had been started by a pneumonia that had brought him to
a coma for 30 days, in the 80s. He smoked until 1995 when, following a heart
attack, he was submitted to a coronary quadruple bypass surgery grafting
