[Q fever: epidemic outbreak of the pure febrile form].

OBJECTIVE: To describe an epidemic of 30 cases of Q fever, none of which had respiratory manifestations.

DESIGN: Descriptive study. SITE. General medicine practices in the Billabona Health Centre, which covers the populations of Billabona and Zizurkil.

PATIENTS AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Thirty patients, 27 men and 3 women, were diagnosed by serology as having Q fever, during and epidemic of a type of fever in Spring 1990.

INTERVENTIONS: They were treated with Doxiciclin, taken orally.

MAIN MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: A general analysis and thoracic x-ray were carried out. The respiratory mechanism was not affected in any case. Transaminases were extremely high in 86% of cases. Other findings were: fever 100%, shivering 83.3%, sweating 96.6%, severe headache 86.7% and myalgia 73.4%.

CONCLUSIONS: Faced with pseudoinfluenza symptoms, and in areas with high occurrence of Q fever, we should consider that we could be dealing with cases of Q fever, even when there are no respiratory manifestations.