Contents
Psittacosis, also known as parrot fever, and ornithosis is a zoonotic infectious disease caused by a bacterium called Chlamydia psittaci and contracted from infected parrots, such as macaws, cockatiels and budgerigars, and pigeons, sparrows, ducks, hens, gulls and many other species of bird.
Clinical features
Incubation period: 5–19 days
First week:
- Symptoms mimic typhoid fever:
- Prostrating high fevers
- Joint pains
- Diarrhoea
- Conjunctivitis
- Epistaxis
- Horder’s spots (like rose spots)
- By the end of first week:
- Respiratory infection + splenomegaly and/or epistaxis (SUGGESTIVE OF PSITTACOSIS)
- Headache (can be so severe that it suggests meningitis)
- Nuchal rigidity
- Severe cases:
- Stupor or coma
Second week:
- Akin to acute bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia:
- Continuous high fevers
- Headaches
- Cough
- Dyspnea
- X-rays: patchy infiltrates or diffuse whiteout of lung fields
Complications
- Endocarditis
- Hepatitis
- Myocarditis
- Arthritis
- Keratoconjunctivitis (occasionally extranodal marginal zone lymphoma of the lacrimal gland/orbit)
- Neurologic complications (encephalitis)
- Severe pneumonia
- Death (< 1% cases)
Diagnosis
Blood panel:
- Leukopenia
- Thrombocytopenia
- Moderately elevated liver enzymes
Microbiological cultures:
- BAL (bronchoalveolar lavage) fluid:
- Leventhal-Cole-Lillie bodies (typical inclusion bodies) + macrophages
Differential diagnosis:
- Typhus
- Typhoid
- Atypical pneumonia by Mycoplasma
- Legionella
- Q fever
Management
Antibiotics
- Tetracyclines and chloramphenicol (DOC)