The use of a geographic information system to identify a dairy goat farm as the most likely source of an urban Q-fever outbreak

نویسندگان

  • Barbara Schimmer
  • Ronald ter Schegget
  • Marjolijn Wegdam
  • Lothar Züchner
  • Arnout de Bruin
  • Peter M Schneeberger
  • Thijs Veenstra
  • Piet Vellema
  • Wim van der Hoek
چکیده

BACKGROUND A Q-fever outbreak occurred in an urban area in the south of the Netherlands in May 2008. The distribution and timing of cases suggested a common source. We studied the spatial relationship between the residence locations of human cases and nearby small ruminant farms, of which one dairy goat farm had experienced abortions due to Q-fever since mid April 2008. A generic geographic information system (GIS) was used to develop a method for source detection in the still evolving major epidemic of Q-fever in the Netherlands. METHODS All notified Q-fever cases in the area were interviewed. Postal codes of cases and of small ruminant farms (size >40 animals) located within 5 kilometres of the cluster area were geo-referenced as point locations in a GIS-model. For each farm, attack rates and relative risks were calculated for 5 concentric zones adding 1 kilometre at a time, using the 5-10 kilometres zone as reference. These data were linked to the results of veterinary investigations. RESULTS Persons living within 2 kilometres of an affected dairy goat farm (>400 animals) had a much higher risk for Q-fever than those living more than 5 kilometres away (Relative risk 31.1 [95% CI 16.4-59.1]). CONCLUSIONS The study supported the hypothesis that a single dairy goat farm was the source of the human outbreak. GIS-based attack rate analysis is a promising tool for source detection in outbreaks of human Q-fever.

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عنوان ژورنال:

دوره 10  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2010