'Farm fever wrecked my life'

There are fears that Q fever could affect cull workers

Three cull workers from Northumbria have been diagnosed with Q fever, a rare disease caught from livestock.

Alan Cameron was infected with Q fever at agricultural college in 1977 - and it has dogged him ever since.

He talked to BBC News Online about the experience.

Alan, from Aberdeen, was only in his mid 20s when he caught Q fever while at agricultural college.

It was a moment which changed his life forever, turning him from a physically strong judo enthusiast to a weakling who, at one point, could barely walk down the road.

It cost him a career in farming, and, remarkably, the relative rarity of the infection meant he was not even diagnosed until almost 15 years later.

I lay on the verge, sweating and trembling. I thought I was going to die

Alan Cameron

He told BBC News Online about the moment he knows he was exposed to the bacteria which caused Q fever.

He said: "I know exactly when it happened. We were helping with lambing, and there was a fine spray of material from the placenta - which I breathed in."

The illness has an incubation period between infection and symptoms of about 10 days.

Alan was driving between Glasgow and Edinburgh when it struck.

He said: "Suddenly I got this headache - it felt like the top of my head was being taken off. I nearly crashed the car.

"I stopped and lay on the verge, sweating and trembling. I thought I was going to die."

When he eventually managed to reach a doctor, he was told there was little that could be done, and that he should simply go to bed for 10 days.

Missed chance

Alan is haunted by the thought that had the condition been spotted then, and antibiotics given, he might have recovered more fully.

As it was, even after the fever receded, his health was far from perfect.

He said: "I was so tired. Before this, I was a fit, strong man, but now I couldn't do anything, I was in a terrible state."

I was so tired. Before this, I was a fit, strong man, but now I couldn't do anything

Alan Cameron

Because he had no diagnosis, he was suspected of malingering by the farmer who employed him, and he was sacked, also losing the tied house that came with the job.

"I was married with a young child at the time, and we lost our home. It was awful."

As the debillitating illness continued over the years, he fruitlessly searched for a name for his condition.

Many doctors were stumped - blood tests showed some sort of immune system problem, but the cause was unclear.

By now, Alan was learning to live with his aches, pains and fatigue - and even managed to pass a medical at the second attempt to join the police force.

In 1990 came the breakthrough - a referral to a doctor who finally identified the cause.

"He knew pretty quickly that the Q fever was the root of the problem."

Debillitating

While some people get a chronic form of Q fever that can recur years after the original infection, and seriously damage the heart or liver, Alan, experts decided, had "Q fever debillity".

Somehow, the infection had triggered a massive immune response from the body which was ongoing, even a dozen years afterwards.

For Alan, this was a huge relief: "I was no longer a neurotic idiot, with nothing really wrong with them.

"This is such a little-known disease, but it has had devastating effects on me."