General information:

Q fever is a disease normally found in sheep, cattle, goats and ticks. The cause of the disease is Coxiella burnetii, a bacteria-like agent known as a rickettsia. Humans acquire Q fever by inhaling the rickettsia which become airborne during handling and processing of animals. As an agent of biological warfare (BW), Q fever is an incapacitating agent and would not be expected to cause significant fatalities. It would likely be distributed as a cloud of rickettsia that would be inhaled by personnel under attack. Rickettsia are highly infectious when delivered in this manner. Disinfection of contaminated articles may be accomplished using a 0.05% hypochlorite solution (1 tbps. bleach per gallon of water).

The military chemical protective mask is effective against inhalation of all Biological Warfare Agents.

Symptoms:

Symptoms appear about 10-20 days after the Q fever rickettsia are inhaled. The symptoms resemble flu symptoms and include fever, chills, headache, fatigue and muscle aches. About one half of persons with symptoms will have pneumonia evident on chest X-ray and some of these will have a cough or chest pain. The complications of meningitis or and inflammation of the heart may arise, but these are uncommon. Normally, the duration of Q fever is 2 days to 2 weeks at which time the disease resolves without permanent effects on the individual.

Medical Countermeasures:

The symptoms of Q fever usually resolve without antibiotic treatment. Antibiotics can be given to shorten the illness. Tetracyclines are the drugs of choice, some recent work indicates ciprofloxacin may also be useful. The timing of antibiotic therapy is important. If given 1-8 days after exposure, the antibiotics will merely delay the symptoms for about three weeks. Antibiotics begun 8-12 days after exposure and continued for 10 days will prevent Q fever from occurring.