Abstract
Background and Objective: Q fever is a zoonotic disease caused by a highly pathogenic, Gram-negative, obligate intracellular bacterium called Coxiella burnetii. Herds of cattle, sheep, and goats are the main reservoirs of this disease, but many other animal species can also become infected and shed the organism through milk. Consumption of unpasteurized milk and dairy products is considered a common method for the transmission of this infection from animals to humans. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the prevalence of Coxiella burnetii in raw sheep and goat milk in Alishtar County.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from March 2015 to May 2015. A total of 202 sheep and goat milk samples were randomly collected from the villages surrounding Alishtar County and were tested for the presence of Coxiella burnetii using the nested polymerase chain reaction (Nested-PCR) method.
Findings and Conclusion: In this study, 202 samples were tested, of which 1 out of 60 goat samples (2%) and 6 out of 142 sheep milk samples (4%) were positive for the specific genome of Coxiella burnetii. According to the descriptive statistics table regarding all collected data from different seasons and regions, it was observed that approximately 97% of the samples were negative and about 3% were positive. Overall, the results of this research indicated that sheep and goat milk could be a potential reservoir for Coxiella burnetii in Iran.