The allegations raised against the Public Health Wales (PHW) by GPs for not informing timely the masses about the Legionnaires' pandemic is being defended by the health officials.

The disease’s outburst started on September 3 in the Heads of the Valleys, but the local people were informed about the same after four days. During this gestation, 11 people got infected with the disease and a woman gave up her life to it. A Merthyr GP is raising doubts against the health authorities for their delay.

Defending the allegations, PHW said that they didn’t delay the alert and took action on time. The delay was required for the health protection crew to monitor the condition adequately, as stated by Dr. Gwen Lowe, a consultant in communicable disease control for PHW.

"The reason why we delayed the public announcement of the outbreak was to allow our clinical colleagues and our GP colleagues to have that information to enable them to act”, she said.

Dr. Jonathan Richards, another GP, also expressed his worry over the duration gap taken by PHW to alarm people against the disease. He stated that even though there is not much information about the outbreak, there is no harm in alerting people.