Small Ruminant Research 134 (2016) 62–64

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Small Ruminant Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/smallrumres

Short communication

Presence of Coxiella burnetii (Q fever) in goats on the Canary Islands:

Current status
María Teresa Tejedor-Junco, Margarita González, Juan Alberto Corbera, Carlos Gutiérrez ∗
Research Institute of Biomedical and Health Sciences, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35413, Arucas, Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Canary Islands have been considered as Q fever endemic territory for humans and livestock, but those
Received 15 August 2015 studies were carried out 20 years ago. In order to evaluate the current status of the disease in livestock,
Received in revised form 9 December 2015 a cross-sectional survey was performed evaluating 22 milking goat farms and 550 goats throughout all
Accepted 20 December 2015
the 7 Canary Islands. A questionnaire to collect epidemiological data was also included. Blood sera were
Available online 28 December 2015
analyzed using a commercial Q fever antibody ELISA test kit. The overall animal seroprevalence was
42%, with significant differences among the islands, their climate zones, and local particularities. These
Keywords:
findings would confirm the endemic character of the disease 20 years later and would indicate the need
Q fever
Coxiella burnetii
to implement an urgent control plan as well as surveillance measures by the Official Veterinary Services.
Goats © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Seroprevalence
Zoonosis
Canary Island

1. Introduction as sentinel animals given their higher seroprevalence and, on the

Q fever is widely distributed throughout the world with the
exception of New Zealand (OIE, 2010). The etiological agent, Cox-
iella burnetii, is a Gram-negative obligate intracellular bacterium,
adapted to thrive within the phagolysosome of the phagocyte.
Although Q fever is present in virtually all “animal kingdom”,
including arthropods, the disease affects mostly humans, cattle,
sheep and goats (OIE, 2010).
The Canary Islands, a fragmented subtropical territory of the
Spanish kingdom, are considered an endemic region of Q fever
(Pascual Velasco et al., 1992). Some studies on human population
revealed an overall seroprevalence of 21.5% (Bolaños et al., 2003a),
and new clinical cases are reported annually on the islands (Bolaños
et al., 2003b; Espejo et al., 2014). Concerning livestock, some sero-
prevalence surveys were carried out in the Canary goat population,
about 20 years ago, showing an overall seroprevalence of 33%
(Velasco, 2010). More recent studies evaluating domestic rumi-
nants on Gran Canaria reported seroprevalences of 60.4%, 31.7% and
12.2% for goat, sheep and cattle respectively (Rodríguez et al., 2010),
and 19% for dromedary camels (Mentaberre et al., 2013). After these
findings, our group decided to estimate the current status of this
disease in all the Canary Islands, assessing goats from each island
∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +34 928451142.
E-mail address: carlos.gutierrez@ulpgc.es (C. Gutiérrez).
other hand, their higher census and economic importance for the
Canary Archipelago. Results would serve as baseline for possible
control programs as well as for public health risk assessments.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Animals
From February to June 2014, a cross-sectional survey was carried out to eval-
uate the status of Q fever in goats in all the 7 Canary Islands. Based on the insular
census (Table 1) and geographic locations the islands were divided into group A
(lower than 20,000 goats), group B (20,001–50,000 goats) and group C (higher than
50,000 goats). Twenty-two farms (according to two-stage cluster sampling method
-Thursfield, 2007-) were randomly selected, corresponding 2, 3 and 4 for the insular
groups A, B and C, respectively. Although the overall prevalence could be affected
using this sampling frame, the impact by island and the comparison between islands
would justify the frame used. A total of 550 animals considering at least a level of
confidence of 95%, desired absolute precision of 5% and an expected prevalence of
50% (Thursfield, 2007). The number of animals to be sampled per farm was 25 (for a
minimal expected prevalence of 12% according to previous prevalence in ruminants
-Rodríguez et al. (2010) and taking into consideration the smallest insular census
(6416, El Hierro island) and all were lactating females (for a better management
they were sampled in the milking room). A questionnaire to collect epidemiological
data was taken from each farmer, and variables were: location of the farm, herd
size (<50–100 animals/101–400/>401) history of abortions (frequent/not frequent),
vaccination against C. burnetii, manure removal frequency (weekly/monthly/lower
frequency/never) urbanization grade (no urbanized/urbanized), and milk processing
(artisanal cheese factory/industrial cheese factory). The urbanization grade was cat-
egorized as “no urbanized” and “urbanized” depending on the absence or presence
of people living in the surroundings (about 500 m).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smallrumres.2015.12.034
0921-4488/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 M.T. Tejedor-Junco et al. / Small Ruminant Research 134 (2016) 62–64
Table 1
Summarized information by island including sample size and seroprevalences.
Island Goat censusa Sampled goats
La Palma 22,730 75
El Hierro 6,416 50
La Gomera 7,105 50
Tenerife 50,085 100
Gran Canaria 82,806 100
Lanzarote 22,520 75
Fuerteventura 119,509 100
Total 311,171 550
a
Source: Regional Canary Islands Government, Statistic Office, http://www.gobcan.es/agricultura/otros/estadistica/).
2.2. Serological evaluation
Blood samples were taken from jugular vein and transported under refriger-
ation until their arrival at laboratory. Serum was obtained after centrifugation at
2000 × g and stored at −20 ◦ C until use. Sera were tested to detect antibodies against
C. burnetii using a commercial Q fever antibody ELISA Test Kit (Idexx, Liebefeld-Bern,
Switzerland), following the manufacturer’s recommendations.
2.3. Statistical analyses
Normality test and inferential analyses were done at 95% of confidence using IBM
SPSS Statistics for Macintosh, Version 22.0. Chi-square (2) or Fisher exact tests were
used to compare two proportions. Odds ratio measure of association was employed
for disease comparisons.
3. Results
Of the 550 examined goats, 234 (42%) showed specific anti-
bodies against C. burnetii, while 316 (58%) presented doubtful or
negative results. Data ordered by island are shown in Table 1.
Statistically significant differences were found comparing the
different islands (2 = 86.76, P < 0.0001), and accordingly, individ-
ual data were then compared to mean values of the Archipelago
(Table 2). As summarized in Table 2, goats located in some islands
like La Palma (OR = 2.58), El Hierro (OR = 2.64), Fuerteventura
(OR = 2.20) or Lanzarote (OR = 1.65) showed higher risk of being in
contact with the bacterium; in contrast, negative OR observed in
Gran Canaria or Tenerife would indicate a protective factor to have
contact with C. burnetii, at least compared to mean values of the
Canaries.
From the reproductive viewpoint, we did not find significant
differences between those herds declaring high or low frequency
of abortions. At this respect, none of the farmers interviewed used
vaccines to prevent Q fever in their herds. Regarding the manure
removal frequency, responses were: weekly (10), monthly (7),
lower frequency (4), never (1). Statistical analysis did not reveal
significant differences between positive and negative herds. Con-
cerning milk processing, 14 of the 22 sampled farms had artisanal
cheese factories, 3 of which included pasteurization as a previ-
ous hygienization process of the milk, while 8 farmers derived the
milk to an industrial milk factory. Non-statistical differences were
found in Q fever prevalence between all sampled farms. As regards
to the urbanization grade, 10 farms were located in rural areas
without human population in the surroundings, while 19 were sur-
rounded by some human settlements; showing an increased risk
in the rural areas compared with the urbanized farms (2 = 8.05;
p = 0.005; OR = 1.63; CI 95% = 1.16–2.29).
4. Discussion
The overall goat seroprevalence in Canaries was 42%, which
should be considered as high compared to other Spanish regions
(8.7% in the Northern Spain) (Ruiz-Fons et al., 2010) or European
territories like Switzerland (11%) (Magouras et al., 2015), or even
63
Sampled farms C. burnetii + (%) C. burnetii − (%)
3 49 (65%) 26 (35%)
2 34 (68%) 16 (32%)
2 28 (56%) 22 (44%)
4 20 (20%) 80 (80%)
4 21 (21%) 79 (79%)
3 35 (47%) 40 (53%)
4 47 (47%) 53 (53%)
22 234 (42%) 316 (58%)
The Netherlands after the outbreaks of human clinical Q fever
occurred recently (21.4%) (Schimmer et al., 2011). In this latter case,
goats were the associated reservoirs for the human infection. In our
study, goat seroprevalence would be increased when compared
with data reported 20 years ago (33%), although improved diag-
nostic methods currently available could have detected a higher
number of cases. In fact, CFT (complement fixation test) and IFA
(indirect-immunofluorescence assay) which were used in those
studies have currently a limited use. Nonetheless, these results
would suppose a high risk for humans and animal population. Fur-
ther studies including also other ruminant species would be needed
in order to estimate the real threat for humans in the region.
Concerning the associated risk factors to present specific anti-
bodies, goats belonging to intensive or semi-intensive managed
farms showed a higher seroprevalence, probably due to a closer
contact of the animals. The absence of vaccination programs against
C. burnetii in all the Islands could also explain this finding. From
the reproductive viewpoint, abortions are widely associated to
C. burnetii infection in goats; however, there were no significant
differences on seroprevalence between herds with high or low
abortion rates. In goats, as in sheep, asymptomatic disease can be
more common than reproductive disorders (Menzies, 2011). Thus,
vaccination of the animals would be an important control measure
for Q fever, but currently vaccination is not a routine practice on
the Canaries. Inactivated phase I vaccine has been recommended
by international organisms in at-risk areas (OIE, 2010), which must
be considered by the Regional Official Veterinary Services in order
to fight against the disease
As regards to manure removal frequency, it has been demon-
strated that goat manure contaminated with C. burnetii can be a
source of infection for human beings; in fact, proximity of con-
taminated land parcels have predicted human cases better than
proximity of Q-fever positive farms (Hermans et al., 2014). This
aspect should be considered when implementing a control plan on
the Canaries. Concerning milk processing, about 50% of the sampled
farms commercialized artisanal cheese without previous pasteur-
ization of the milk. Thus, islands like La Palma and La Gomera are
particularly worrying because all the sampled farms produced and
commercialized unpasteurized cheese. The hypothesis that inges-
tion of C. burnetii would infect individuals is controversial. The
bacterium is the most heat resistant organisms of public health
significance. Although C. burnetii seems not be viable in dairy prod-
ucts (Eldin et al., 2013), stringency of milk pasteurization has been
established as a safety measure (Cerf and Condron, 2006).
As a conclusion from our results, goat seroprevalence of C. bur-
netii on the Canary Islands can be considered as high, reinforcing
the hypothesis that the disease is endemic on the Archipelago.
Moreover, the disease would be an important re-emerging disease
on the Archipelago. An urgent control plan as well as surveillance
measures must be exercised by the Official Veterinary Services for
containment of the disease and to avoid the risk for humans and
animals to be infected.
64 M.T. Tejedor-Junco et al. / Small Ruminant Research 134 (2016) 62–64

Table 2
Values of individual Chi-squared test of each island.

Island 2 P value OR CI 95%

La Palma 17.46 <0.0001 2.58 1.64–4.07

El Hierro 10.05 0.002 2.64 1.42–4.91
La Gomera 1.92 0.165 – –
Tenerife 33.68 <0.0001 0.22 0.13–0.38
Gran Canaria 28.19 <0.0001 0.24 0.15–0.43
Lanzarote 7.33 0.007 1.65 1.15–2.37
Fuertventura 11.99 0.001 2.20 1.41–3.58
*
OR: Odds ratio; CI: Confidence interval. 2 represents the mean of each island compared to the 6 other islands.

Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank veterinarians in charge of the goat
health associations on each island as well as the farmers and herd
keepers to allow us the access.
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