The symptoms of Legionnaires Disease can be put into two categories:

1. Flu-Type

Including a series of acute symptoms, such as catching a chill, shivering, fever, fatigue, headache, muscle pain; it may also include cough, angina, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and dizziness.

2. Pneumonia-Type

The patient may firstly sense a lack of power, headaches, indisposition all over the body, and may also have fever, and a poor appetite as well as light coughs. After 1-2 days, the patient’s body temperature may dramatically rise to above 39℃, and at the same time such symptoms as shivering, muscle pains, dry coughs, respiratory distress, expectoration, and blood phlegm. The worse patients may even encounter respiratory failure.

The Flu-type Legionnaires Disease, which usually lasts for one week, can be completely cured, and are harmless to liver, kidney and other organs.
　
The pneumonia-Type Legionnaires Disease may be accompanied with some multi-organic complications such as gastrointestinal bleeding, pancreatitis, cardiac or renal failure. The recovery may be chronic, and the death rate of the disease is 5%-30%.

How to do with the emergence of such symptoms?

Legionnaires Disease, which does not have specific symptoms or body signs, can only be diagnosed through laboratory examinations. When the above mentioned symptoms occurred, patients should seek in time treatments from standard hospitals. Doctors will arrange a routine test of the blood, chest X-ray examination, or bacterial culture etc, in accordance with the real situation, so as to form a correct diagnosis and give corresponding treatments.

How to carry out prevention by ourselves?

   Since Legionella Pneumophila lives in various environments, the key point of such prevention lies in the cleanliness of shower faucets, air-conditioning system, hot water taps and some other water supply pipes. These devices should be regularly cleaned or even disinfected if possible. Once there is an outbreak of Legionnaires Disease, the epidemic situation should be timely reported to local disease prevention and control department. And epidemic investigation should be carried out accordingly, so that the polluted location can be identified as soon as possible, and the polluted water source be removed in time. The methods of heat disinfection (i.e. to heat the water to 70℃ or above, and flush all of the water supply pipes), ozone disinfection (ozone concentration should be between 1-2 mg/L) and ultraviolet radiation disinfection can be adopted to disinfect the polluted water sources.