ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies animal diseases that are host specific and reviews the effects of various human diseases on animals. It also identifies history, etiologic, human Infection, diagnosis, public health aspects and therapeutic aspects of each disease important to epidemiology and prevention. Q fever and coxiellosis are global enzootic diseases with arthropod, annelid, poikilotherm, and homeotherm reservoirs, disparate habitats, broad host range, and complicated transmission cycles. Genomic groups contain reference Coxiella burnetii strains that were isolated from arthropods or from infected humans and/or animals. Q fever and coxiellosis are directly associated through contact with infected animals and their products. Vaccine for Q fever is not commercially available in the United States, but the phase I Henzerling vaccine may be obtained under an investigational new drug protocol. The epidemiology and epizootiology of Q fever and coxiellosis, respectively, were facilitated by the discovery of antigenic phase variations in C. burnetii and of specific serodiagnostic antigens.
