For Laboratories

CDC offers the following resources to assist state and local public health laboratories in enhancing their Legionnaires’ disease testing and outbreak response capacities.

ELITE Program
A program to allow laboratories to test the Legionella isolation techniques against standardized samples

Toolkit: Developing a Legionnaires’ Disease Laboratory Response Plan
A Practical Guide to Developing a Legionnaires’ Disease Laboratory Response Plan for State and Local Public Health Laboratories

CDC Laboratory Guidance for Processing Environmental Samples
Procedures currently used by CDC to process environmental samples obtained during investigations of Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks

CDC Specimen Submission Form [2 pages]
Instructions for how to ship specimens to CDC for Legionella testing

For information about testing clinical or environmental samples and isolates at the CDC laboratory, see Request CDC Assistance.