Parturient Cat As a Potential Reservoir for Coxiella burnetii : A Hidden Threat to Pet Owners

• Published in: Vector borne and zoonotic diseases (Larchmont, N.Y.) Vol. 21; no. 4; p. 264
• Main Authors: Abdel-Moein, Khaled A, Zaher, Hala M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-04-2021
• Subjects: Animals; Cat Diseases - epidemiology; Cats; Coxiella burnetii - genetics; Dog Diseases; Dogs; Female; Phylogeny; Pregnancy; Q Fever - epidemiology; Q Fever - veterinary; dogs; cats; C. burnetii; public health
• ISSN: 1557-7759
• DOI: 10.1089/vbz.2020.2714

Q fever is a worldwide zoonosis caused by
. This study was carried out to investigate the occurrence of
among apparently healthy pregnant, parturient, and postparturient dogs and cats to highlight their role in the transmission of such disease to humans.
A total of 88 apparently healthy pet animals (48 dogs and 40 cats) were enrolled in this study, vaginal swabs were obtained from pregnant and postparturient animals while birth fluids were collected from parturient ones. All samples were subjected to DNA extraction followed by nested PCR for molecular detection of
.
Out of 40 cats, 3 were positive for
with an overall prevalence of 7.5%, all positive samples were birth fluids of parturient queens with a prevalence of 15.8% (3/19) while all pregnant and postparturient animals were negative. In contrast, none of 48 dogs yielded positive result. Moreover, the phylogenetic analysis and sequence identity matrix of the obtained sequence from a parturient cat showed high genetic relatedness to strains derived from human cases rather than those of ruminants to indicate the public health burden of such strain.
This study underscores the occurrence of
among parturient cats to point out the possible zoonotic transmission to human contacts.