Screening for Workers After Three Get Rare Fever

LONDON (Reuters) - British health officials are offering screening to people who helped cull animals on a farm in northern England during the foot and mouth crisis after three Army workers came down with a rare infectious disease.

The Army personnel developed Q fever, which is caused by a microbe carried by sheep and other animals, after working on the farm near Wooler. All three were treated in hospital. Two have been released.

The illness causes flu-like symptoms, which are treated with antibiotics. Very rarely patients can develop an inflammation of the lining of the heart, which can be fatal.

``Q fever is caused by an organism mainly through contact while handling animals, particularly during the lambing season,'' said Carol Burns, a spokeswoman for the Northumberland Health Authority in northern England.

``We are screening people who have been working on the farm. There is one farm involved,'' she added.

Exposure to the microbe is common in farm and abattoir workers and laboratory staff. Many farm workers have a natural immunity to the infection.

The organism is transmitted by direct contact with animals, particularly birthing fluids and placenta tissue during the lambing season.

Symptoms include headache, fever and in some cases pneumonia. In England and Wales there were 57 reported cases in 1999 and 75 last year.

Britain has culled more than a million animals since the first case of the disease was reported in February in an abattoir in Essex, in eastern England.

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