The bacterium is extremely sustainable and virulent: a single organism is able to cause an infection. The common source of infection is the inhalation of contaminated dust, contact with contaminated milk, meat, or wool, and particularly birthing products. Ticks can transfer the pathogenic agent to other animals. Transfer between humans seems extremely rare and has so far been described in very few cases.Some studies have shown more men to be affected than women, which may be attributed to different employment rates in typical professions. "At risk" occupations include:
Veterinary personnel;
Stockyard workers;
Farmers;
Sheep shearers;
Animal transporters;
Laboratory workers handling potentially infected veterinary samples or visiting abattoirs;
People who cull and process kangaroos; and
Hide (tannery) workers. History
Q fever was first described in 1935 by Edward Holbrook Derrick in slaughterhouse workers in Brisbane, Queensland. The "Q" stands for "query" and was applied at a time when the causative agent was unknown; it was chosen over suggestions of abattoir fever and Queensland rickettsial fever, to avoid directing negative connotations at either the cattle industry or the state of Queensland.The pathogen of Q fever was discovered in 1937, when Frank Macfarlane Burnet and Mavis Freeman isolated the bacterium from one of Derricks patients. It was originally identified as a species of Rickettsia. H.R. Cox and Gordon Davis elucidated the transmission when they isolated it from ticks found in the US state of Montana in 1938. It is a zoonotic disease whose most common animal reservoirs are cattle, sheep, and goats.
Jugular foramen syndrome, or Vernets syndrome, is characterized by paresis of the glossopharyngeal, vagal, and accessory (with or without the hypoglossal) nerves. Symptoms
Symptoms of this syndrome are consequences of this paresis. As such, an affected patient may show:
dysphonia/hoarseness
soft palate dropping
deviation of the uvula towards the normal side
dysphagia
loss of sensory function from the posterior 1/3 of the tongue (CN IX)
decrease in the parotid gland secretion (CN IX)
loss of gag reflex
sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles paresis (CN XI)

Causes
Glomus tumors (most frequently)
Meningiomas
Schwannomas (Acoustic neuroma)
Metastatic tumors located at the cerebellopontine angle
Trauma
Fracture of occipital bone
Infections
Cholesteatoma (very rare)
Obstruction of the jugular foramen due to bone diseases
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma spreading into the parapharyngeal space involving the ninth, tenth, and eleventh cranial nerves

Diagnosis
Gadolinium enhanced mri for vestibular schwannoma
mri and biopsy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma
based on nerve palsies
NCCT for occipital bone fracture


== References ==