By Prue Adams
Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley has promised to keep a “watching brief” on the incidence of Q fever – an infectious disease passed from animals to humans – as dry conditions provide an ideal environment for the airborne organism to spread.
Q fever can passed on from almost any animal, but is mostly spread by goats, sheep and cattle.
The early symptoms resemble the flu and include high temperature, sweating, and body aches and pains.
If caught early, it can be treated with antibiotics.
But it has become increasingly clear that 20 to 25 per cent of cases do not fully recover, with sufferers going on to develop long-term chronic fatigue.
Approximately 2 per cent of people who contract the disease end up with a life-threatening failure of their heart valves, and a small percentage die from the disease.
“Probably the Australian community … would not be aware of what a serious infectious disease it really is,” said Dr Andrew Cuthbertson, the chief scientific officer of CSL in Melbourne, where a vaccine for Q fever is made.
Q fever – the Q standing for Query – is an international disease, identified in almost every country except New Zealand, but Australia is the only place that has an effective vaccine.
Classed as a notifiable disease, just under 500 Australian cases are registered each year, almost half of them in Queensland.
Recent research has revealed northern New South Wales towns like Guyra and Gunnedah, are also hotspots, with as much as 22 per cent of the population showing exposure to the disease.
The Q-vax vaccine was introduced to abattoir workers in the early 1990s and resulted in a halving of the number of Q fever cases nationally.
Government will not commit to future vaccination campaigns
A federally funded vaccination campaign targeting sheep, cattle and dairy farmers was rolled out from 2001-2005, again with a dramatic drop in notifications.
With case numbers edging up slightly in the past two years, and a lack of awareness of the disease even in rural areas where it is most prevalent, there have been calls for another subsidised vaccination campaign.
“I think it’s a must and I can push it all the way to Parliament House if I have to,” Kendall Jackson, who contracted the disease in 2004 while working as a South Australian ABC rural reporter, said.
But Ms Ley said she would not agree to another vaccination campaign “at this stage”.
“I will keep a watching brief,” she said in response to an investigation by the ABC’s Landline program.
“I am always pleased to me made aware of a situation that is causing concern.”
Ms Ley worked in shearing sheds when she was younger and nursed “someone close” to her through Q fever.
She said she had contacted the Government’s chief medical officer and the chief health officers in each state in the wake of Landline’s inquiries.
“We will keep an eye on this and we will certainly act if we need to,” she said.
Dutch outbreak could have spread to 50,000
Ms Jackson said she struggled with post-Q fever fatigue syndrome (QFS).
Only recognised as an ailment in the past decade, sufferers have complained of severe tiredness, headaches, body aches and pains and memory loss.
“I have never felt like I am the same person again since I’ve had Q fever,” Ms Jackson said.
The mother-of-four, who now owns a hotel at Warnertown near Port Pirie, has also had seizures and requires a life-time of anti-epileptic medication.
While Q fever was first identified in Australia in the 1930s, the largest ever outbreak occurred in the Netherlands from 2007 to 2010.
Transferred from infected dairy goats in the southern part of the country, more than 4,000 people officially contracted the disease.
Government experts contacted by Landline said the real incidents were probably 10 times that number, and that there could have been up to 50,000 cases.
At least 30 Dutch people died from the illness, approximately 300 others have life-threatening health issues, such as heart valve failure.
An estimated 2,500 people suffer from the debilitating impact of QFS, with many of them unable to work full time.
‘Preventable illness can have disastrous consequences’
Wim van der Hoek from the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment maintains Australia could learn from the dramatic impact Q fever had in his country.
“Q Fever had always been considered, especially in Australia, an occupational disease,” he said from his office outside Amsterdam.
“But in the Netherlands, that was not the case.
“Of course people with occupational exposure like farmers and so on also became infected, but a large majority of people had no direct contact with animals.”
The Dutch government was so concerned about Q fever sufferers that it set aside 10 million euros (about $15 million) for a patient-support foundation.
A fifth of those funds were to be directed towards research and the remainder funnelled to patients for ongoing health costs and compensation for the inability to work.
“I think it’s important for people on the land to know that this is a preventable illness … that can have pretty disastrous consequences if they don’t prevent it,” Dr Bruce Chater, the local doctor at Theodore in central Queensland, said.
The full story will be broadcast on Landline this Sunday at noon