Edinburgh Legionnaires' Disease Outbreak: Robert Air Named as Fatality amid Rising Number of Confirmed Cases

The man who died after contracting Legionnaires' disease in Edinburgh has been named as Robert Air as the number of confirmed cases has risen to 24.

Family members of the father-of-two known as Bert confirmed he died just hours after arriving at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Air, a builder form the Seafield area of Edinburgh, had complained of feeling ill after working on a building site in Gorgie, in the western area of Edinburgh, where most of the cases have been reported.

Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said that the number of confirmed cases had risen to 24, with a further 27 suspected.

Sturgeon said plans were continuing to find and contain the source of the disease.

She told the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood: "It remains the case that there is no identified link between these cases other than an association with the affected areas in the southwest of Edinburgh."

Sturgeon also reassured the public that Legionnaires' disease cannot be passed on from person to person or contracted by drinking water.

Of the confirmed cases, 12 are in intensive care and two have been discharged. A majority of the cases are men aged in their mid-30 to late-80s.

Air's brother Ronald told The Scotsman that the victim had been suffering flu-like symptoms before being admitted to hospital.

"I spoke to Bert and he told me he was lying in front of the fire shivering and shivering and trying to get himself together. I told him to get the doctor out.

"It was all over in 24 hours. It was too quick. I'm devastated."

Sturgeon has said advisory leaflets were being handed out to homes in the infected area.

The majority of the cases have been found in the Dalry, Gorgie and Saughton areas in the southwest of the Scottish capital. Sixteen water towers thought to be the source of the disease have been chemically treated in the affected areas.

Sturgeon said the outbreak was: "the most significant Legionnaires' outbreak we have had in Scotland for a long, long time, perhaps since the early 1980s".