Surveillance of Legionnaires' disease in Austria

Seven foreign cases of travel-associated Legionnaires' disease were associated with two neighbouring tourist villages in Austria between 1992 and 2004. The seven foreigners stayed in four hotels located in a geographical diameter of less than 10 km. Two cases were diagnosed in The Netherlands and five in the UK. The first case occurred in 1992, while the remaining cases clustered between August 2000 and April 2004. None of these cases was reported officially as part of a hotel-associated cluster, thereby highlighting several weaknesses of the infectious disease control systems involved.