Due to the high resilience in the environment of Coxiella, humans are most often infected by inhalation of aerosols produced in contaminated locations, but other modes of infection have been documented (including food-borne).
Zaradi visoke vzdržljivosti bakterije Coxiella v okolju se ljudje najpogosteje okužijo z vdihavanjem aerosolov, nastalih na kontaminiranih lokacijah, vendar pa so bili zabeleženi tudi drugi načini okužbe (vključno s prenašanjem s hrano).