TOC  | ID Psittacosis
Acute infection of chlamydial psittaci with penumonitis & systemic manifestations; esp. from parrots, parakeets, etc.

SX:
High fever with shaking chills, malaise, myalgias, chest pain, hacking cough, initially nonproductive, but later on mucoud or occasionally blood streaked; mild sore throat with cervical adenitis; relative bradycardia is often present.

Splenomegaly in 10%, also hepatomegaly, but jaundice is uncommon, may rarely cause myocarditis, pericarditis, meningitis, encephalitis, seizures, etc.

DX:
WBC is usually normal; Chest x ray of atypical pneumonitis; > 4x increase in complement fixing or fluorescent antibody titer; a single late titer of >1:64 is suggestive of the diagnosis. Definite dx can also be made from sputum or bipsy material by tye isolation of chlamydial psittaci in mice, embyonated eggs, or pretreated tissue culture cells.

RX:
Tetracycline 500 mg qid PO or 250 500 mg q6h IV till 7 10d after defervescence.