Hot water temps in all apartment blocks in Vilnius to be raised to fight legionella

Hot water temperatures in all apartment blocks in Vilnius will be temporarily raised to carry out a thermal disinfection of the hot water systems after three people infected with Legionnaires' disease have died in the Lithuanian capital, the local authority's Emergency Commission decided on Wednesday.

"The Emergency Commission decided that all of the city's buildings should be subjected to thermal shocks as a preventive measure to ensure that there are no Legionella outbreaks in the future," Arvydas Darulis, deputy director of the city's administration and head of the commission, told reporters on Wednesday

Legionella bacteria cause Legionnaires' disease, a severe form of pneumonia contracted by inhaling contaminated water droplets. Around one in ten cases is fatal. The bacteria multiply at temperatures between 20 and 50C and die when the temperature of water rises above 65C degrees.