[Q fever: not just in sheep].
Four patients, a woman aged 41 years and 3 men aged 12, 47 and 44 years, developed high fever after returning from a farm vacation in the Ardèche (France). They also suffered from severe headache, a painful tightness of the chest, abdominal pain or myalgia. Other symptoms were shivers, tiredness and a cough. While physical examination revealed few abnormalities, the chest X-ray in 3 patients showed an atypical pneumonia. One of these patients developed dural venous sinus thrombosis with increased intraspinal pressure. This patient also showed signs of a slight hepatitis. Serological investigation revealed that all 4 patients were suffering from acute Q fever, a zoonosis caused by the Coxiella burnetii bacterium. All 4 had been present at lambing and sheep-shearing. The patients with pneumonia were treated with antibiotics. All 4 patients recovered well. It is known that animal birth products in particular can contain large numbers of bacteria and therefore be highly infectious.
Ziekenhuis Eemland, Amersfoort.
H
H
Stevens
M P
MP
Beeres
J G
JG
Meijer
J
J
Koeman
E
E
van Kregten
A K
AK
Bartelink
D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000097:blood; D002648:Child; D016997:Coxiella burnetii / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D005334:Fever / Q000382:microbiology*; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D011778:Q Fever / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology; D012756:Sheep; D012757:Sheep Diseases / Q000635:transmission*; D014195:Travel; D015047:Zoonoses / Q000635:transmission
D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial