China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Biological Terrorist Agents
Published in Robert A. Burke, Counter-Terrorism for Emergency Responders, 2017
Patients are not critically ill, and in most cases the illness lasts from 2 days to 2 weeks. Diagnosis is confirmed through serology (blood work). Q fever is generally a self-limiting illness and will clear up without treatment. Antibiotics given during the illness can shorten the period of incapacitation. Tetracycline is the antibiotic of choice, and when given during the incubation period, may delay the onset of symptoms. Usual dosage is 500 mg every 6 hours or 100 mg doxycycline every 12 hours. Use of antibiotics will shorten the duration of the illness. Antibiotic treatment should be continued for 5–7 days. The disease is remarkably resistant to heat and drying and is stable under diverse environmental conditions. It can survive for months and even years in the environment. It also survives in dried sputum for 30 days, dust up to 120 days, dried urine for 49 days, feces of ticks 586 days, milk for 42 months at 45°F, and in wool for 12–16 months at 45°F. Disinfectants used for Q fever include sodium hypochlorite, formalin, and phenols (susceptibility varies), and it is also susceptible to ethanol, glutaraldehyde, and gaseous formaldehyde. It can be deactivated by using ether, chloroform, and gamma irradiation. Vaccines for humans are still in the development stages, although tests have shown promise. The International Society of Travel Medicine has reported that 10 cases of Q fever occurred between 1999 and 2003. Four patients had visited Bosnia; three, sub-Saharan Africa; and one each, French Guiana, Tunisia, and Reunion Island. The sources of exposure were farm animals, sheep and goats, and wild rodents. It is expected that the instances of Q fever in the world are likely underreported.
Biological hazards
Published in Sue Reed, Dino Pisaniello, Geza Benke, Principles of Occupational Health & Hygiene, 2020
Margaret Davidson, Ryan Kift, Sue Reed
Q fever is a zoonotic, flu-like illness caused by the organism Coxiella burnetii. Workers most at risk of exposure to Q fever include those exposed to animal placental material or urine of infected animals; examples of those who may be at risk of contracting Q fever include veterinarians, abattoir workers and others who handle livestock. Q fever is the most reported of six zoonoses on the Australian National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS). Q fever can be controlled effectively by the uses of a vaccine, which must be given before exposure to the bacteria (Australian Meat Processor Corporation, 2018).
Biological Hazards
Published in W. David Yates, Safety Professional’s Reference and Study Guide, 2020
Q fever is a zoonotic disease caused by Coxiella burnetii, a species of bacteria that is distributed globally. Occupations at greatest risk include veterinarians, dairy farmers, ranchers, stockyard workers, slaughterhouse employees, wool handlers, and rendering plant workers. In 1999, Q fever became a notifiable disease in the United States, but reporting is not required in many other countries. Because the disease is underreported, scientists cannot reliably assess how many casesof Q fever have actually occurred worldwide. Many human infections are inapparent.16
Navy Metrology and Applications of Biosensors
Published in NCSLI Measure, 2018
Subrata Sanyal, Dylan Shackelford
The biological agents that are released in a biological attack are categorized into two types: pathogens and toxins. The difference between the two is that a pathogen is a living organism, whereas a toxin is an inert by-product of a living organism. Pathogens include bacteria, viruses, rickettsia, and fungi. They are either naturally occurring or altered by genetic mutation for a desired goal. Toxins are just as deadly as pathogens, being produced by the metabolic activities of living organisms. Classical biological agents include anthrax, botulinum toxin, smallpox, tularemia, Q fever, ricin, viral hemorrhagic fevers, and the plague [7]. Biological agents fall into five main categories [8]:BacteriaRickettsiaViral agentsFungiToxins of biological origins.
Occupational exposure to anaerobic bacteria in a waste sorting plant
Published in Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 2021
Marcin Cyprowski, Anna Ławniczek-Wałczyk, Agata Stobnicka-Kupiec, Rafał L. Górny
An important element of a proper exposure assessment is the use of appropriate analytical methods enabling to cover groups that have not been so far studied. For a long time, the combination of culture-based methods and biochemical tests, due to their acceptable cost and ease of use, has been the primary way of identifying environmental bacteria (Zaleski et al. 2005). Such approach enables identification of viable infectious strains responsible for numerous adverse outcomes and, due to that, was widely used in the studies of various working and living environments (Buczyńska, Cyprowski, and Szadkowska-Stańczyk 2011; Gołofit-Szymczak and Górny 2018; Góra et al. 2009; Naddafi et al. 2019; Reinthaler et al. 1997; Ugolini and Sander 2019). Today, molecular methods are faster, more sensitive and specific compared to culture-based techniques. The accuracy of the results obtained using biochemical tests is estimated to be 70–85% compared to molecular techniques (Ko et al. 2007). Considering the specificity and short time of analysis, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), including 16S rRNA analysis, seems to be a good way for identification of bacterial strains, including those with limited growth capacity (Mackay 2004). However, PCR analysis does not provide information on whether a particular microorganism is viable or not. In turn other molecular, methods such as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) are successfully used in profiling of environmental bacterial communities (Eisen and Levin 2007), but short sequencing readings (usually around 300–500 base pairs) make difficult to recognize all species of specific bacterial genera (Rizal et al. 2020). Despite this drawback, the PCR method has significantly improved the precision of microbial identification in different occupational settings, including: wastewater treatment plants (Orsini et al. 2002), tanneries (Skóra et al. 2014), waste composting plants (Anedda et al. 2019), metalworking (Gilbert, Veillette, and Duchaine 2010) or animal production facilities (Dungan and Leytem 2009). In case of municipal waste sorting plants, molecular identification techniques have been so far used to diagnose Q fever cases caused among workers by Coxiella burnetii (Alonso et al. 2015); however, regarding anaerobic bacteria such analyzes have not been frequently performed (Degois et al. 2021). Detailed analyzes of anaerobic bacteria using the NGS as well as also culture-based methods in combination with the MALDI-TOF MS (Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization – Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry) technique were so far carried out on pig farms (White, Nielsen, and Madsen 2019).