S.L. 465.3 Art. 2Definitions.

In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires:

"accreditation" means third-party attestation by the Maltese

National Accreditation Body or by any other accreditation body as recognised by the Maltese National Accreditation Body, in accordance with the Establishment of the Accreditation Directorate Order, of a laboratory, conveying formal demonstration of its competence to carry out specific test;

"accredited laboratory" means a laboratory to which accreditation has been granted according to the requirements of MSA ISO/IEC EN 17025; "the Act" means the Public Health Act;

"authorised officer" means any duly qualified person authorised by the Superintendent to carry out any functions under these regulations and includes any nominated officer; "biocide" means a physical or chemical agent capable of killing micro-organisms, including Legionella; "clean" means to render free from visible sludge, foam, slime (including algae and fungi), rust, scale, dirt, and any deposit or accumulation of impurities or other foreign material; "cold water system" means an installation of plant, pipes and fittings in which cold water is stored, distributed and subsequently discharged;

"cooling tower systems" includes:

(a) a cooling tower, or a number of interconnected cooling towers that use the same recirculating water; and

(b) any machinery that is used to operate any such tower; and

(c) any associated tanks, pipes, valves, pumps or controls;

"cooling tower" means a device whose main purpose is to cool water by direct contact between that water and a stream of air;

"designated area" means any premises or part thereof to which the public or a section of the public has access, whether on payment or otherwise; "disinfect" means to carry out a process which is intended to kill or remove pathogenic micro-organisms; "drift" means the water aerosol which emerges from the airflow outlet of a cooling system;

"evaporative condenser" means a device whose main purpose is to cool a fluid by passing that fluid through a heat exchanger which is itself cooled by the contact of water passing through a stream of air; "guidelines" means the European Guidelines for Control and Prevention of Travel Associated Legionnaires’ Disease produced by the European Working Group for Legionella Infections (EWGLI) and endorsed by the Committee for the Epidemiological Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases in the Community, instituted by Decision 2119/98/EC of the European Parliament and the Council; "heat exchanger" means a device for transferring heat between fluids which are not in direct contact with one another; "heterotrophic colony count" means an estimate of the number of viable units of bacteria per millilitre of water made using the pour plate, spread plate or membrane filter test (also known as the total bacterial count, total plate count or viable bacterial count test) method; "legionella" means bacteria belonging to the genus Legionella; "premises" includes all non-domestic premises used for or in connection with the carrying on of a trade or business (whether for profit or not) and should include any healthcare facility and schools; "responsible person" includes the person who owns, manages or controls the cooling tower systems, or evaporative condensers, or hot and cold water systems, or water fountains or a number of these systems in the same premises; "sentinel taps", in relation to a hot water system, means the first and last taps on a recirculating system. For cold water systems (or non-recirculating hot water systems), the nearest and furthest taps from the storage tank. The choice of sentinel taps may also include taps which are considered to represent a particular risk; "spa pool" includes a bath or a small pool where warm water is constantly recirculated, through high velocity jets or with the injection of air to agitate the water; "the Superintendent" means the Superintendent of Public Health; "warm water system" means a piped water supply, including any thermostatic mixing valve, which is designed to supply water at a temperature of between 30ºC and 60ºC; "water" means water supplied through the main water distribution system or water supplied by an authorised private water supplier or through a water supply approved by the Superintendent or by the relevant competent authorities; "water fountain" means any water feature located in a designated area.