Sexually transmitted Q fever

We report the sexual transmission of Coxiella burnetii from a man with occu pationally acquired Q fever to his wife. Fifteen days after coitus, his wif e also developed serologically proven acute Q fever. C. burnetii DNA sequen ces were detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) performed on semen sam ples obtained from the husband at 4 and 15 months after the onset of acute Q fever, but PCR results were variable at 23 months, indicating the presenc e of few organisms.