Via Corriere della Sera: Pneumonia: Technicians seeking legionella in the Chiese pulp mills. The Google translation, slightly edited:
The hunt for the possible causes of the contagion of pneumonia continues and the research, as anticipated by Corriere, is concentrating along the axis of the Chiese as explained by the director general of ATC of Brescia on Tuesday.
So the technicians of the Health Protection Agency, with the help of firefighters, on Tuesday, sieved, for a whole day, the Chiese Pulp Mill in Montichiari, carrying out a total of 23 samples, especially on the cooling towers of the production cycles.
Yesterday, however, it was the turn of other companies and the hospital of Montichiari.
The hypothesis, to be verified, is that in these large radiators may have nested the legionella bacteria, which is airborne through the water vapor and then dispersed in the atmosphere by the wind, in a sort of gigantic aerosol that could have infected the inhabitants of Montichiari but also of some neighboring country (Ats has asked Arpa to model the winds of the first week of September).
Let's be clear, the water used by the paper mill for its production cycles and drawn not from the Chiese but from two artesian wells a few meters from its bed, reaches very high temperatures, such as not to allow the survival of the bacterium. Nor could they survive the sulfuric acid used for cleaning and macerating recycled paper.
However, the vapors may have intercepted the bacteria present in the cooling system. How could they have arrived there? This is a beautiful mystery. For the infectious diseases of the public hospitals, the legionella has developed in the warm pools of the river, impoverished by drought, irrigation and hydroelectric plants.
And since the paper mill does not use water directly from the Chiese river but some wells made a few meters from its bed, it is assumed that legionella may have affected the first stratum.
Logically if this were the true Cartiera would be indirect victim of the epidemic. But in the company, which has dozens of employees, is there anyone who has pneumonia?
"We have several employees at home in sickness," confirms Alberto Piovani, responsible for security, "but for privacy reasons we can not even know what diseases they suffer from. We have provided their names to the Ats staff who will contact their family doctors."
Meanwhile, production in the paper mill continues. The results of the sampling, which will tell if the legionella bacteria (or others) have been found, will be ready in ten days, or 21 September.
