ABSTRACT
In 1933, Dr. Edward Derrick, the director of Health and Medical Services for Queensland, Australia, was sent to investigate a previously undescribed disease among abattoir workers in Queensland, Australia. Patients presented with fever, headache, and malaise. Because the disease etiology was unknown, this syndrome was called Q (query) fever. Blood and urine from patients were injected into guinea pigs in an attempt to discover the cause of the disease. Infection caused a febrile response that could be passed to successive animals [1]. However, the etiologic agent could not be isolated and Dr. Derrick assumed that the causative agent was a virus. About the same time, in Montana, ticks collected in an investigation into Rocky Mountain spotted fever were injected into guinea pigs. One of these animals became febrile and the infection could be passed to successive animals. Although the infectious organism was isolated, the identity of the resulting disease remained unknown. A breakthrough in studying this microorganism occurred in 1938, when Dr. Cox was able to cultivate Coxiella burnetii in large numbers in yolk sacs of fertilized hen eggs [2]. Also in 1938, a researcher in Montana was infected with the tick isolate, and guinea pigs were infected by an injection of a sample of the patient’s blood. Ultimately, the agent causing the unidentied disease in Australia was shown
10.1 History .......................................................................................................... 179 10.2 The Organism ............................................................................................... 180 10.3 Transmission ................................................................................................. 180 10.4 Symptoms ..................................................................................................... 181 10.5 Animal Models of Acute Q Fever ................................................................. 182
10.5.1 Mice .................................................................................................. 182 10.5.2 Guinea Pigs ....................................................................................... 183 10.5.3 Nonhuman Primates ......................................................................... 184 10.5.4 Other Animal Models ....................................................................... 185
10.6 Animal Models of Chronic Q Fever ............................................................. 185 10.7 Animal Models of Vaccine Safety ................................................................ 186 10.8 Vaccine Efcacy Testing .............................................................................. 188
10.8.1 Mice and Guinea Pigs ....................................................................... 188 10.8.2 Nonhuman Primates ......................................................................... 189
10.9 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 191 References .............................................................................................................. 191
to be the same as the one isolated from ticks in Montana by demonstrating that guinea pigs previously challenged with the Montana isolate were resistant to challenge with the Q fever agent [3].
