Legionnaires\u2019 disease is a type of pneumonia caused by breathing in the bacteria, with public health recording an increase in notifications linked to soil products each spring.<\/p>\n
Medical officer of health Dr Matthew Reid said the illness could be severe, but gardeners could take simple steps to reduce the risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo reduce the risk of breathing in Legionella bacteria, only handle potting and compost mix bags outdoors or in well-ventilated areas, and open them carefully and away from your face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reid recommended wearing gloves and a well-fitting face mask, preferably an N95, dampening soil products to reduce dust and thoroughly washing and drying hands afterwards.<\/p>\n
Not everyone who breathes in Legionella bacteria becomes unwell and some people only develop a milder illness called Pontiac fever. <\/p>\n
However, people over 50, smokers and those with chronic illnesses or weakened immune systems are more susceptible to the disease.<\/p>\n
Symptoms can include a cough, fever, chills, shortness of breath, muscle aches, headaches, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.<\/p>\n
The illness typically worsens over several days and requires antibiotics, with most cases requiring hospitalisation.<\/p>\n
Reid said anyone experiencing symptoms, particularly after using potting mix or compost, should contact their healthcare provider or Healthline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legionnaires\u2019 disease is a type of pneumonia caused by breathing in the bacteria, with public health recording an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70579,61293,74,8126,536,2512,46704,7191,199266,52096,42,134,28750,56109,43,1118,10711,1523,4517,305527,8213,7192,6921,199,305526,1961,40,38,41,39,26697,8222,3608,1316,379],"class_list":["post-620778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-70579","tag-61293","tag-after","tag-canterbury","tag-care","tag-cases","tag-compost","tag-disease","tag-gardeners","tag-handling","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-hospitalised","tag-legionnaires","tag-news","tag-of","tag-officials","tag-over","tag-past","tag-potting","tag-recorded","tag-risk","tag-spring","tag-take","tag-thirtysix","tag-this","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-warn","tag-warned","tag-were","tag-when","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}