| Background: Q-fever which is caused by Coxiella burnetii is a world wide spread disease. In 2013, an Austrian survey of 500 healthy participants found a seroprevalence of 2% (Tobudic S, 2014). The reason why there is no official count of patients with Q-fever, is that cases of Q-fever is not a notifiable disease in Austria. In 2009 a survey identified three cases of Q-Fever in the west of Austria. The aim of our survey is now to find the total number of Q-fever cases in Austria during 2013.
Methods: 124 departments of internal medicine were contacted by emails, asking them if there have been some cases of Q-fever, inpatient or outpatient, during the year 2013.
Results: 75 of the 124 departments of internal medicine (60,5%) answered our request. In the year 2013 no single case of Q-fever was diagnosed or treated in the departments.
Conclusions: During the year 2013, no case of Q-fever could be verified. The seroprevalence of about 2% suggests that there are many patients with Q-fever which are never diagnosed or simply don´t develop clinical symptoms.
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