A pilot program for clinical Q fever surveillance as a first step for a standardized differential diagnosis of abortions: Organizational lessons applied to goats farms

•Proposal of a farm-level diagnostic approach of abortive episodes.•Achieving synergy between mandatory reporting and etiological research of abortions.•Large-scale test of the steps of abortive episodes diagnosis applied to Q fever.•Q fever poorly involved in abortion episodes in French goat farms.•Maximum limit of quantification exceeded in most farms with clinical Q fever.