Q Fever Outbreak in Homeless Shelter

Abstract

Urban outbreaks of Q fever have occurred after exposure to slaughterhouses or parturient cats. We detected an outbreak of Q fever in a homeless shelter in Marseilles. Investigations showed that the main factors exposing persons to Coxiella burnetii were an abandoned slaughterhouse used for an annual Muslim sheep feast and wind.

Keywords

• homeless
• Q fever
• Coxiella burnetii
• slaughterhouse
• wind
• dispatch