Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Today I had to tell a young couple that the little Amazon parrot which they had just purchased two weeks ago, at a cost of $400, had died of psittacosis. As we continued to discuss the ramifications of the disease, the young wife started to recite her sumptoms of the past three days, which very strongly support the probability that she has psittacosis too. At least she and her husband know what the problem is, but they are still faced with the expense and nuisance of a prolonged course of treatment. They may or may not get some adjustment for their financial loss.
Variations on this same theme have been repeated 46 other times in Southern California so far this year and more than 80 times in all of California. Each case is a little different from the others, but each typically involves some hazard to the people who are involved, some death losses of birds, considerable expense and effort during the quarantine period and much disruption of the personal or business life of the individuals. In at least 35 of the 47 cases, the owners knew nothing about psittacosis or only had a very hazy notion of its nature. I see this as a warning to us that we must do a better job of education in the future.
There are at least three proposed solutions for the problem which have been considered seriously by at least some private and official parties. One group would just ignore the problem and hope it would go away. For as long as psittacosis can be transmitted to humans and is able to cause illness and even death, this approach must be discarded as unacceptable. At the other extreme are those few individuals who would solve the problem by eliminating the primary source of the disease, namely birds. As absurd and distasteful as this approach is, it appears that it is actually under consicerauon and we must not ignore the possibility that at least an attempt might be made to irnple- ment it. Between the two extreme positions lies a middle ground where concerned private and profesr-onal workers may meet to exchange ideas and work together to reduce the threat of psittacosis to our birds and to ourselves. This is where I find myself and is the point of departure for this presentation.
WHAT IS PSITTACOSIS?
Psittacosis is an infectious disease of birds and humans which is caused by a peculiar kind of bacteria which is known by the name of Chlamydia psittaci. As a disease, it may pass undetected, it may cause mild to severe illness, or it may kill. It all depends on the capability of the particular strain of bacteria to cause disease, balanced against the ability of the infected bird or human to resist the effects of the organism. For example, the strains which commonly infect pigeons and doves is usually mild and only rarely kills an otherwise healthy bird. That same strain rarely affects the owner of the birds, although it may pose a hazard to someone with chronic lung problems such as emphysema. The strains which commonly infect budgerigars rarely kill the birds, but may cause a serious disease in the unwitting buyer of an apparently well carrier bird. It often happens that we uncover an infected breeder flock as a result of the traceback from a human case. Interestingly enough, once the flock is identified and properly treated, the owner usually volunteers the information that they have never looked so well or produced such good babies.
Most other psittacines seem to be high· ly susceptible and usually will die after a short or long illness. The owner of the infected bird will often become quite ill and will not recover until the specific drug treatment, tetracycline or chlortetracycline, is administered. The untreated disease in humans is only very, very rarely fatal, but it can kill and must be treated with respect.
CLINICAL SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS
In birds, the disease may persist undetected for some time or may manifest itself suddenly. In the case of psittacines, a typical pattern might be the following. The bird is found to have ruffled feathers, it is depressed, it loses its appetite and rapidly loses weight, and it may have diarrhea. Many of you will recognize that this group of symptoms is shared by many diseases and can't serve to identify psittacosis with any degree of certainty.