Ovine shed C. burnetii mainly in feces
and vaginal mucus, whereas bovine shed mainly in milk Furthermore,
the infected animals may not persistently shed C. burnetii.
Shedding of C. burnetii by infected animals occurs mainly during
parturition and lactation. Therefore, detection of C. burnetii in milk
greatly depends on the sampling time. The use of repeated sampling
can reduce the likelihood of falsely classifying a herd as C.
burnetii negative (Rahimi et al., 2010; Van den Brom et al., 2013).
In previous studies conducted in Iran, a total 18.2% of dairy herds
in Fars, 4.2% in Khuzestan and 5.5% in Yazd were infected with C.
burnetii (Khalili et al., 2015).