Read condition-specific symptoms and clinical context for Coxiella burnetii. A tough, inhaled bacterium of farm animals that causes Q fever — usually a flu-like illness, occasionally a long one.
PHAC describes C. burnetii as a pleomorphic, Gram-negative, spore-forming coccobacillus existing in two forms: a small-cell variant with condensed nucleoid filaments and a metabolically active large-cell variant. It is an obligate intracellular pathogen that completes its development cycle in the phagolysosome — the acidic compartment most bacteria avoid. CDC states that these bacteria naturally infect some animals such as goats, sheep and cows, and that people become infected by breathing in dust contaminated by infected animal feces, urine, milk and birth products. PHAC reports that approximately 1 to 10 organisms are required to cause infection, one of the lowest infectious doses recorded for any bacterium, and that Q fever is endemic worldwide except New Zealand.
PHAC describes acute Q fever as a self-limited flu-like illness, atypical pneumonia and hepatitis, with an incubation period of 13 to 28 days when acquired by the respiratory route.
Possible symptoms: Fever; Chills; Severe headache; Fatigue; Muscle pain; Joint pain; Cough.
PHAC states that acute Q fever is rarely fatal, with pneumonia mortality of 0.5 to 1.5%. The percentages above describe how often each feature appeared in the reviewed case series, not the chance of developing it.
PHAC defines chronic Q fever as infection lasting longer than six months, developing in immunocompromised individuals, with endocarditis as the primary manifestation. CDC describes it as a life-threatening infection requiring several months of antibiotic treatment.
Possible symptoms: Infection of the heart valves (endocarditis); Prolonged illness lasting more than six months.
PHAC associates chronic infection with a high mortality rate and with immunocompromise. It affects a minority of infected people, so the acute and chronic figures should not be combined.
Working with or near infected animals does not always produce Q fever.
The bundled sources give no symptom list for exposure that does not lead to recognised illness, and none is invented here. CDC identifies veterinarians, meat processing workers, dairy employees, livestock ranchers and researchers at facilities housing sheep and goats as facing elevated exposure risks, which is an occupational category rather than a diagnosis. PHAC’s note that approximately 1 to 10 organisms are required to cause infection explains why exposure matters so much in those settings, and why it is assessed occupationally. This profile assigns no human carriage state.
Occupational exposure assessment and serological follow-up are handled through workplace and public-health processes. This app gives no exposure advice.
Source check: 2026-09-20. Educational content; independent scientific review remains pending.