Epidemiological Characteristics of Serologically Confirmed Q Fever Cases in South Korea, 2006–2011

Abstract

Objectives:Q fever has been reported worldwide; however, there was almost no official report of Q fever in Korea. In this study, we describe the current status of human Q fever occurrence in Korea.Methods:Demographic data of Q fever patients were collected from the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System from 2006 to 2011. Case investigation reports from regional public health departments were used for additional information, like risk factors and clinical manifestation, of the patients since 2008.Results:There were 65 serologically confirmed cases during the study period. The annual notification rate of Q fever was 0.22 cases per million persons. The majority of cases were men (87.7%), adults (98.5%), and urban inhabitants (67.7%). Relevant exposures to risk factors were identified in 45.7% of patients. The most common symptoms of acute Q fever were fever (89.3%), myalgia (67.9%) and asthenia (53.6%). Two cases with endocarditis were identified in chronic Q fever.Conclusion:This study suggests that Q fever has a low endemicity in Korea. However, management and research at national level is required for prevention of a future epidemic.

The Epidemiology and Characteristics of Q fever and Co‐infections with Scrub Typhus, Murine Typhus or Leptospirosis in Taiwan: A Nationwide Database Study

“…The findings from this database study were similar to our previous clinical study of QF in southern Taiwan, including the high percentages of male gender, high-risk occupations and residence in the southern and Kaohsiung-Pingtung regions among confirmed cases of QF (Lai et al, 2007(Lai et al, , 2008(Lai et al, , 2014a(Lai et al, , 2015. The predominant season, age range and male gender were similar to those reported from other countries (Frankel et al, 2011;Dijkstra et al, 2012;Kwak et al, 2013;Dahlgren et al, 2015). Notably, although QF is a zoonosis, the percentages of contact with any animal (29.8%), cattle (0.6%) and goats (0.9%) were low in confirmed QF cases and did not differ from non-QF cases (Table 1).…”

“…However, low rates of high‐risk occupations (16.2%, Table ) and histories of exposure to goats (0.9%) and cattle (0.6%) (Table ) were still identified in this analysis of a nationwide suspected QF database. These results were much lower than those observed in the United States (cattle: 25.0%, goats: 20.4%) (Dahlgren et al., ), South Korea (cattle: 20.0%, goats: 8.6%) (Kwak et al., ) and the Netherlands (cattle: 6.6%, goats: 14.9%) (Dijkstra et al., ). According to the results of this nationwide database analysis and previous clinical studies, high‐risk occupations or a history of animal exposure might not be sufficiently strong indicators for suspicion of human QF in Taiwan.…”

“…Epidemiological studies (Roest et al., ; Dijkstra et al., ), serological investigations (Schimmer et al., ) and molecular genotyping of C. burnetii ‐positive samples from ruminants and humans (Roest et al., ) have determined that infected farm animals (sheep and goats) were the infection source. Only a few nationwide studies regarding the surveillance and epidemiology of human QF have been reported from the United States (McQuiston et al., ; Dahlgren et al., ), France (Frankel et al., ), the Netherlands (Dijkstra et al., ) and South Korea (Kwak et al., ), although most such studies have disclosed an increasing trend in case numbers. A recent systemic review reported an overall QF seroprevalence of 10% in humans in China, a number that was considered to be under‐reported and underdiagnosed because QF was not a notifiable disease in China (El‐Mahallawy et al., ).…”

Clinical Characteristics of Q Fever and Etiology of Community-Acquired Pneumonia in a Tropical Region of Southern Taiwan: A Prospective Observational Study

“…Pneumonia is the predominant presentation of Q fever in Japan, particularly for children with atypical pneumonia [15]. In South Korea, however, only 10.7% of cases present with pneumonia, and 21.4% are hepatitis [16]. The presentation of Q fever in China is not well illuminated in English literature.…”

Chloroform-Methanol Residue of Coxiella burnetii Markedly Potentiated the Specific Immunoprotection Elicited by a Recombinant Protein Fragment rOmpB-4 Derived from Outer Membrane Protein B of Rickettsia rickettsii in C3H/HeN Mice

“…Coxiella burnetii , a rickettsia-like bacterium belonging to order Legionellales , is the etiological agent of Q fever in humans. Human Q fever is generally acquired via the respiratory route by inhalation of infectious aerosols produced by domestic livestock [ 6 ] such as sheep or goats [ 7 , 8 ]. Human Q fever presents a flu-like syndrome and may develop pneumonia in serious C .…”