History
It was first described by Edward Holbrook Derrick in abattoir workers in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The "Q" stands for "query" and was applied at a time when the causative agent was unknown; it was chosen over suggestions of "abattoir fever" and "Queensland rickettsial fever", to avoid directing negative connotations at either the cattle industry or the state of Queensland.
The pathogen of Q fever was discovered in 1937, when Frank Macfarlane Burnet and Mavis Freeman isolated the bacterium from one of Derrick’s patients. It was originally identified as a species of Rickettsia. H.R. Cox and Gordon Davis isolated it from ticks in Montana, USA in 1938. It is a zoonotic disease whose most common animal reservoirs are cattle, sheep and goats. Coxiella burnetii is no longer regarded as closely related to Rickettsiae, but as similar to Legionella and Francisella, and is a proteobacterium.
Read more about this topic: Q Fever
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