Welcome

Welcome to the 23rd meeting of the European Working Group for Legionella Infections (EWGLI) to be held on 11-13 May, 2008 in Madrid. Many things have changed since the first description of Legionnaires´ disease in Philadelphia in 1976. Legionellosis is nowadays a well known infectious disease, methods for diagnosis, treatment, bacterial typing and control are available and guidelines for prevention have been developed. However more knowledge is necessary in order to understand the pathogenicity, natural history and transmission of Legionella from its reservoir to susceptible individuals.

This meeting in Madrid will be an excellent opportunity to share current multidisciplinary knowledge and experience, together with state of the art research about the proposed topics. Our efforts are addressed to get a stimulating scientific programme where a wide variety of fields can be discussed, in order to address future research.

We would like to invite all of you, old and new friends, experts and new researchers, to participate in and enjoy together a fruitful meeting. We would like also to invite our Spanish colleagues to share their experiences with the European counterparts.

On behalf of the Organizing Committee