Legionnaires' disease in Scotland
Surveillance report 2024

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) is the third release of Scottish Legionnaires' disease statistics since the pandemic, the first published in 2023 (covering the years 2017 to 2022). Legionnaires' disease surveillance reporting has changed to annual in Scotland and this report presents data from 2024. We continue to develop these reports in collaboration with our stakeholders.

Main points

• Case numbers and incidence increased in 2024 with 57 cases, an incidence of 10.4 per million population. This is an increase of 7.5% from 2023 when 53 cases (9.7 per million population) were notified. This continues an increasing trend in Legionnaires' disease since 2021. The latest report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) describes increasing trends across EU/EEA countries to 2021.
• This is the highest number of cases and incidence observed in a year, excluding the 2012 outbreak, with no outbreaks, common sources, exposures or links identified.
• 94.2% of cases were aged 40 years and older; comparable to the age distribution reported for Europe by ECDC in 2021, where 91% of cases were in those aged 45 years and older.
• There were six reported deaths in Legionnaires' disease cases in 2024, equating to a case fatality rate (CFR) of 10.5%. Latest data for Europe in 2021 reported CFR for Legionnaires' disease cases was reported to be 9%.
• Similar to most of the previous years, with the exception of 2021 and 2023, most cases (56.1%) were travel-associated (cases reporting travel outwith the UK).
• The number of community-acquired cases decreased from 32 (60.4%) in 2023 to 25 (43.9%) in 2024 however this is the second highest since 2017.
• Cases peaked in quarter two (April to June), driven mainly by travel-associated cases (13/14: 54.2%).

This figure is a line chart which shows annual Legionnaires’ disease cases in Scotland from 2000 to 2024. A peak in cases was observed in 2012 when there was a large Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Edinburgh. Number of cases remained stable from 2017 to 2019, dropping in 2020 and 2021. As for 2024 where case numbers were at 57 cases, these are of the highest since 2013, when there were 48 cases.

Close

Annual total of cases of Legionnaires' disease in Scotland, 2000 - 2024

Background

Legionella infections are notifiable under the Public Health etc. (Scotland) Act 2008. National enhanced surveillance of Legionnaires' disease has been conducted alongside the Scottish Microbiology Reference Laboratory (SMiRL) since 1994 collecting demographic data, clinical and microbiological information, and risk factors. This allows us to identify and monitor trends, detect outbreaks, identify potential sources of infection and inform measures to reduce the public health risk.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be August 2026.