Legionnaire's suspected in Pirbright

LONDON (Reuters) - Health officials said on Thursday they were probing a suspected case of legionnaire's disease contracted by a person who had spent time at a laboratory at the centre of a foot and mouth disease outbreak.

A spokeswoman for the government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) could not say if the unidentified person had actually worked at the Institute for Animal Health in Pirbright.

The government institute shares a site with Merial Animal Health laboratory, owned by U.S. firm Merck and French firm Sanofi-Aventis SA, about 5 miles (8 km) from two farms where foot and mouth disease has been found in cattle.

Government inspectors have been trying to discover whether the foot and mouth virus originated in the laboratories, which say they operate under the strictest biosecurity standards.

There is no link between legionnaire's and foot and mouth disease.

When legionnaire's disease is diagnosed, inspectors look at every place the patient visited, at home and abroad, before falling ill, to find the source of the infection.

"We look at all the different places this person has been," said the HSE spokeswoman. "Early findings show that there is nothing to suggest it (the institute) was not meeting the standards we expect it to meet," she added.

Legionnaire's disease is a type of pneumonia, caught by inhaling small droplets of water suspended in the air that contain the germ Legionella bacterium, the HSE said.