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Diagnosis of Psittacosis
It is also called as Ornithosis, or Parrot Fever, infectious disease of worldwide distribution caused by a bacterial parasite (Chlamydia psittaci) and transmitted to humans from various birds. The infection has been found in about 70 different species of birds, but parrots and parakeets (Psittacidae, from which the disease is named), pigeons, turkeys, ducks, and geese have been the principal sources of human infection.
Psittacosis usually causes only mild symptoms of illness in birds, but in humans it can be fatal if untreated. Humans usually contract the disease by inhaling dust particles contaminated with the excrement of infected birds. The bacterial parasite thus gains access to the body and multiplies in the blood and tissues. In humans psittacosis causes high fever and pneumonia, with such other symptoms as chills, weakness, head and body aches, and (sometimes) an elevated respiratory rate. The duration of the disease is two to three weeks, and convalescence often is protracted. Before modern antibiotic drugs were available, the case fatality rate was approximately 20 percent, but penicillin and the tetracycline drugs reduced this figure almost to zero.
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