The burden of legionnaires’ disease in Belgium, 2013 to 2017

Table 1 Presentation of the number of reported LD cases, the number of deaths among them and information about hospitalized LD cases in Belgium, 2013 to 2017

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	Mean
Reported LD cases^a	190	186	191	227	280	215
Deaths among reported LD cases^b	26	23	17	21	n.a.	22
Case fatality ratio (95%CI)	14% (9–19%)	12% (8–17%)	8.9% (5–13%)	9.3% (5–13%)	n.a.	11% (9–13%)
Hospitalized LD cases^c	155	163	n.a.	180	232	184
Median duration of stay in days (min–max)	13 (0–130)	9 (0–172)	n.a.	9 (0–227)	9 (1–78)	10
Proportion of males	66%	79%	n.a.	71%	72%	72%
Proportion of cases aged ≥ 65 years	42%	40%	n.a.	41%	49%	43%

LD Legionnaires’ disease, CI Confidence interval, ICD International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, n.a. No data available
^aCombined cases from the national reference center, mandatory notification and sentinel laboratories; duplicates excluded based on overlapping birth dates, postal codes and gender
^bStatistics Belgium death certificate data linked with data of the reported LD cases based on overlapping birth dates, postal codes and gender. Deaths within 90 days after diagnosis were included
^cHospitalized patients with a primary or secondary diagnosis of LD (ICD-9 code 482.84; ICD-10 code A48.1) as reported by the hospital discharge data

ISSN: 2049-3258