Risk of Pseudomonas in natural swimming pools

Question

Hello,

It is surely not exactly without danger for a CF person to visit one of the natural swimming pools that are becoming more and more modern recently. Is there also a risk staying in the sunbathing area next to such a natural pool?

And is it exaggerated to ask my partner to use a nasal douche each time after having visited a natural swimming pool for fear of colonisation?

Best regards

Answer

Hello,

To be honest I had not heard about „natural swimming pools“ before and had to inform myself what this is. Good information can be found, e.g. in Wikipedia. In short, it is either a natural open air pool or it is built artificially, but in a natural way and does not need any kind of chemicals.

In contrary to regular pools where chlorine is added for cleaning the water, the cleaning of the water in natural swimming pools is achieved biologically.

The sunbathing area and visitors of those pools are adapted with regards to the cleaning ability [AP: The original German text also says “Liegewiesen und Besucher der Bäder werden der Fähigkeit zur Reinigung angepasst.”]. As a matter of course there are specific regulations for such a pool how the bacterial load can be avoided. If these pools or sunbathing areas are of risk for CF patients is not know. However, I would estimate the risk to be higher than in a regular swimming pool since is is possible that Pseudomonas aeruginosa being a water bug “lasts” longer in a natural swimming pool. For healthy people, though, Pseudomonas is practically no problem. A nasal douche for your partner is surely a bit exaggerated. Many greetings and have fun swimming.
Barbara Kahl

29.10.2009