Australia’s largest ever farm-based outbreak of Q fever. It was recently revealed that in 2012 Australia experienced its largest outbreak of Q fever associated with a single farm in the country’s history, according to a report that aired earlier this month on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program Landline. At least 24 people contracted Q fever during an outbreak – that is still ongoing, at least among the animals – on a goat dairy farm in the state of Victoria in southeastern Australia. Victoria is the smallest of the Australian states and home to the city of Melbourne, where more than 75% of Victorians live. Victoria is also the center of dairy farming in Australia, and more than 14 million sheep and 5 million lambs graze over Victorian farms. And the region boasts one of the biggest dairy goat farms in the country. The affected farm located near Ballarat – a city borne out of the gold rush days of the 1850s and located 65 miles outside of Melbourne – is a big enterprise with three dairies and more than 100 staff. They milk thousands of sheep and about 5000 goats twice daily, according to the report. Q fever is a zoonotic disease – that is, a disease passed from animals to humans – caused by a bacterium called Coxiella burnetti. In the environment, this bug is extremely hardy as it can morph into a spore-like form that can sit in the soil for years before it encounters its next host. While the bacterium can infected many different species of animals, livestock including cattle, sheep, and goats are the primary reservoir hosts for this bug. In them, the disease often manifest abortion, and the bacteria are excreted in the milk, urine, and feces of infected animals.