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[Q fever: epidemic outbreak of the pure febrile form]
J M Martínez Eizaguirre1, M Pérez Rizo, A Olivella Pedregal
1Centro de Salud de Billabona, Guipúzcoa.
Objective:
To describe an epidemic of 30 cases of Q fever, none of which had respiratory manifestations.
Design:
Descriptive study. SITE. General medicine practices in the Billabona Health Centre, which covers the populations of Billabona and Zizurkil.
Patients And Other Participants:
Thirty patients, 27 men and 3 women, were diagnosed by serology as having Q fever, during and epidemic of a type of fever in Spring 1990.
Interventions:
They were treated with Doxiciclin, taken orally.
Main Measurements And Results:
A general analysis and thoracic x-ray were carried out. The respiratory mechanism was not affected in any case. Transaminases were extremely high in 86% of cases. Other findings were: fever 100%, shivering 83.3%, sweating 96.6%, severe headache 86.7% and myalgia 73.4%.
Conclusions:
Faced with pseudoinfluenza symptoms, and in areas with high occurrence of Q fever, we should consider that we could be dealing with cases of Q fever, even when there are no respiratory manifestations.