338
1 This number was calculated based on DATASUS (official Brazilian database maintained by the Federal
Department of Health), according to which 733,643 people were hospitalized in Brazil with pneumonia.
ASpanish study (SOPENA, N.; SABRIÀ, M.; PEDRO-BOTET, M. L. et al. Prospective Study of Community-
Acquired Pneumonia of Bacterial Etiology in Adults) points that 12.5% of all cases of pneumonia are caused
by a single
Legionella
bacteria:
Legionella pneumophila
. We can add to this the information that the 2013
Annual Epidemiological Report from ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) states
that the fatality rate for legionnaire’s disease is about 9%. Thus, based on those studies we can affirm that,
out of 733,643 hospitalizations for pneumonia, 91,705 possibly were caused by
Legionella pneumophila
,
leading to the death of 8,253 people.
