[A case report of psittacosis and chlamydial isolation from a dead pet bird]

Abstract

A 33-year-old previously healthy woman was seen at this hospital after a week of fever and nonproductive cough. A roentgenogram of the chest showed consolidation in the left upper and middle lung fields. Transbronchial lung biopsy from left S1 + 2 revealed an increase of mononuclear leukocytes within the interstitial spaces and slight cell infiltration with in the alveoli. Bronchoalveolar lavage cellular constituents showed 47% alveolar macrophage, 38% lymphocytes and 15% neutrophils. She had kept a parakeet, which died just after her illness. We could isolated organisms from the liver, spleen, kidney, lung, heart and bowel of her pet bird revealing C. psittaci by Giemsa stain, three days after it was buried in the ground. She was given three hundred mg of ofloxacin per day orally for fourteen days and the clinical effect was good. The in vitro activity of ofloxacin was 0.75 microgram/ml.