The Courier Shop

Alternatively titled – Van drivers and Legionnaires disease
Do you drive a van? or do a lot of motoring in industrialised areas?
Do you suffer headaches, muscle pain, chills, high fever, shortness of breath, a persistent cough and chest pains? It could be Legionnaires disease. That shocked me, Legionnaires disease is something that I associate with manky hospital air con and water systems, not something I would associate with van drivers and motorists.

Apparently the warm stagnant water that we use to wash our windscreens is a breeding ground for the germ. As we know engines are lovely warm places and the water that we wash our windscreens with can easily breed the disease, as it’s got all the right conditions for it.

It’s easily cured according to the researchers, just use screen wash.

“Not adding screenwash to windscreen wiper fluid is a previously unidentified risk factor and appears to be strongly associated with community acquired sporadic cases of legionnaires’ disease,”

the researchers wrote.

So if you drive a lot you are 5 times more likely to catch the disease and the researchers think 20% of Legionnaires are caught this way, through washing your windscreens without screenwash.

Something worth thinking about? I think so.

Thanks to Andy @practicaleq asking where my blog on this was

Sarah