[Q fever: epidemic outbreak of the pure febrile form].

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.