Prevalence of Coxiella burnetii (Q fever) antibodies in bovine serum and bulk-milk samples

Abstract

Q fever (Coxiella burnetii) is a zoonotic disease of increasing public health importance. The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of, and risk factors associated with, exposure to C. burnetii in cattle in the Republic of Ireland. Bulk-tank milk samples from 290 dairy herds and 1659 sera from 332 dairy and beef herds, randomly sampled, were tested by indirect ELISA to detect antibodies to C. burnetii. In total, 37·9% of bulk-milk sample herds and 1·8% of sera (from 6·9% of herds) were antibody positive. Of risk factors tested using logistic regression analysis, only large herd size (bulk-milk analysis) and dairy breed (serum analysis) significantly increased the odds of being positive for antibodies to C. burnetii. Herds with positive milk or serum samples were randomly distributed throughout the Republic of Ireland and no clustering was observed. The use of an ELISA to test bulk-milk samples collected by randomized stratified sampling is a cost-effective method by which national herd prevalence can be estimated by active surveillance.

Prevalence and risk factors for Coxiella burnetii (Q fever) in Dutch dairy cattle herds based on bulk tank milk testing

“…For humans, the main infection route is by inhalation of infected aerosols (Cutler et al, 2007;Roest et al, 2011a). It has been described previously that in 2007 the seroprevalence and DNA prevalence of C. burnetii in bovine herds in the Netherlands were 79% and 28%, respectively (Muskens et al, 2011) which was comparable to that in other western European countries (Agger et al, 2010;Ryan et al, 2011). Because it cannot be excluded that dairy cattle may transmit C. burnetii to other species, it is important to be able to take preventive measures to reduce the prevalence in cattle herds.…”

Seroscreening of lactating cattle for coxiellosis by TRANS-PCR and commercial ELISA in Kerala, India

“…However, it was well below the range of 12.78 to 29.9% reported in the cattle from northern parts of country by other workers (Joshi et al, 1978;Vaidya et al, 2010), which may be attributed to the investigation of animals at household level, with not more than 3 cattle per house examined in the present study. On contrary, studies involving large cattle herd size with intensive farming practices were found to have a positive association with C. burnetii infection (McCaughey et al, 2010;Ryan et al, 2011;Paul et al, 2012;Agger & Paul, 2014;Boroduske et al, 2017). The positivity of a serum sample in both trans-PCR and ELISA points to an active cycling of the pathogen within the herd/animal, where the animals get infected and seroconverts frequently as described by other researchers (Freick et al, 2017).…”

Seroprevalence of Coxiella burnetii in Polish cattle herds

“…The increasing prevalence of C. burnetii antibodies in milk and serum has been observed in Europe in recent years. For example, the following levels of seroprevalence have been reported: 79% in the Netherlands (12), 38% in Ireland (14), 67% in Northern Spain (3), 48% in Northern Ireland (10), 79% in Denmark (1), and 71% in Belgium (6). Moreover, Tilburg et al (18) showed that 76% commercially available milk samples or milk products from 28 countries contain significant amounts of C. burnetii DNA.…”

“…The studies conducted by other research centers in Europe have demonstrated that the prevalence of C. burnetii infection in ruminants, including dairy cattle, has been increasing in recent years. The seroprevalence in Europe was estimated at a range between 38% and 79% (3,6,12,14). The results of serological and molecular tests (PCRs) confirm the presence of C. burnetii in cattle herds.…”