Psittacosis question

Hi all, thanks so far on all of the advice. As you may know, I adopted an eclectus last month. Immediately brought him to my avian vet for the full work-up. I have had my parrotlet for a year, also adopted (original source unknown). The eclectus has come back negative and all blood work looked good. I kept them in isolation for 4-5 weeks.

Anyway, my question is this. I was told that even with a negative result, the birds could still be positive and that most of these tests are not very effective. How is anyone really sure about their birds not harboring psittacosis? Am I being overly paranoid? I'm especially worried about my parrotlet (stool has been completely normal and she looks healthy the year that I have had her) but who knows what she was exposed to in the past. I'm worried it will suddenly become active and affect my eclectus, so I explained this to my vet and he said I could bring her in for prophylactic treatment of 4 weekly antibiotic injections. What do you all think? Am I overthinking this? I have an appointment to bring her in Sat. :11:

I'm not sure where you heard that the tests for Psitticosis aren't accurate, but in my own experience doing testing for it, the tests are very sensitive to it, depending on what tests they use to diagnose it...I did ELISA and PCR testing on blood samples I spun down to serum, looking for antibodies specific to it, or I did micro on cultures from the nares, throat, crop, feces, etc. These are more specific tests than the blood work sometimes, as occasionally a blood antibody and antigen test is negative, but the other blood tests are indicative of supporting a differential=diagnosis of Psitticosis, rather than any other condition...

But here's the thing...Exposure to the bacterium that causes Psitticosis is required for them to contract the disease (a strain of chlamydia), and the incubation period for it is usually only a few months...There are certain strains that can remain dormant and only express themselves when the bird is under great stress, but these are rare, and the absolute best way to avoid a "false-negative" test result is to do both blood testing and cultures. If you get a negative test result on both the specific antigen and antibody blood tests AND the cultures, then it's highly unlikely that your bird has been exposed to Psitticosis.

I am guessing they are talking about the small % of birds who carry and shed the BACTERIA without showing symptoms. In those cases, I would think that the biggest risks would be to humans and other birds, but I think carriers of Psittacosis are semi-rare.


The same cannot be said about carriers of ABV (precursor to PDD which is carried by 45% of birds roughly!!! ARGGGGG)


I think generally it is recommended that new birds be screened and quarantined for 45 days (because of the risk to others)but that is likely written for those in aviaries.



I am sure you are fine, but there is always a chance. Wash hands between bird handling and keep toys/food separate if it helps. An actively ill bird can transmit the BACTERIA via poop, feathers and respiratory secretions, but a carrier typically just spreads in via droppings (if the bird isn't symptomatic).



A VERY GOOD cleaner (that kills Psittacosis and beak and feather etc ) is f10 SC. It is avian safe and doesn't have to be rinsed off. It also can be used in the same room with birds without causing respiratory problems.


Edit- Also, carriers tend to shed the BACTERIA when under stress. I imagine that your bird would have shed the BACTERIA when you adopted him as that is a stressful time. For that reason, and due to the fact that YOU haven't gotten it yet, you are probably safe. You touched the birds poop and cleaned up after it daily and at some point in time, had it shed the BACTERIA, you would likely have come into contact with it and contracted it yourself.

Ok thanks! I was under the impression that carriers were quite common. It was a different vet than the one that I used for my eclectus (he wasn't available at the time) so I think I'm going to stick with my regular AV and cancel my parrotlet's appointment. Thanks again!

I am not a vet....


but I know that in wild birds, carriers are like 1% of the population.


If so many birds carried it, I imagine that people with multiple birds (breeders, aviarys , homes) would have a HUGE problem with this all of the time and that no one would ever board a bird or own more than one...While I know there are some issues with it, my impression is that it isn't super common (especially after a negative result when a bird has been with you for a while without issue)....

@noodles that's true, I never thought about it that way. Anyway, I made an appointment at my regular AV to get chlamydia/gram stains done just to be on the safe side. I feel better that I'm not putting my little parrotlet unnecessarily through painful IM injections. If anything comes back positive, then I suppose it will be treatment for both.

Slight confusion when reading about psittacosis and "virus" in the same sentence.

Psyttacosis is the result of getting infected with Chlamydia psittaca.
(and yes a bacterium, not a virus)


-
?
but if you are worried about the untested bird infecting the tested one... why not just test both?
?
-

I had a carier without symptoms (Japie) once, it showed up during his first 'lets test for anything' CAVvisit - and immediately got an official warning to quarantine everything (its a good thing he was an only parrot at the time).
Yes it is a zoonotic infectious disease - and I've been infected myself (probably a couple of times since childhood / nobody cares untill you get really, really sick).

I thought it quite ridiculous (the strict quarantine) esp. since the majority of the free pigeons here are cariers.
(ducks, turkeys, canaries etc. are all cariers of the same bacterie; the last outbreak here was from a bunch of infected turkeys from Italy)

Anyway- antibiotics for a few weeks, twice a day ...
so a lot of toweling Japie (we just met) and he loved it!
(well the sweet taste of the antibiotics anyway, he did not care that much for being a burrito twice a day, but he was a gentleman about it)
A nice vet-visit in my house and another swab ... and we were done!



Some good came out of it:
Japie and I were sort of forced in close together, and we did allright
I learned a *lot*
and - because there was an official record of his existence in my house (zoonosis go all the way to the top here), getting his CITESpapers a year or so later...was a lot easier!




My not-so-birdloving friend caught it a couple of years ago on a birdmarket - when I was thinking of getting another parrot.
He got so bad (delirium because of high fever) I almost called an ambulance
(I only had some mild fluesymptoms myself and am pretty laid-back when it comes to human diseases, growing up in a rural part of the country).
A *lot* of people gotten infected at that event.

(That is why I always <internally> explode when tested birds are taken to birdmarkets "for fun and games" <youtube-fan-wh@ring>, they could be exposed to the more serious ones! Just buy your bird some nice things for later! - after they've been cleaned etc.. Don't expose them to it!)

Christa- My bad----BACTERIA!!

I started that post with a comment on PDD and that was stuck in my head. Either way, I meant what I said (minus virus, plus bacteria)
I think she tested the new one and was worried that the negative could have been false. The main thing was this idea of false-negatives via testing.



Thanks for calling me on my mistake- fixed it lol.

noodles123 said:

Christa- My bad----BACTERIA!!

I started that post with a comment on PDD and that was stuck in my head. Either way, I meant what I said (minus virus, plus bacteria)
I think she tested the new one and was worried that the negative could have been false. The main thing was this idea of false-negatives via testing.



Thanks for calling me on my mistake- fixed it lol.

Click to expand...

Happens to me too
Brain wil not let go of something etc.etc.


You always sound like you know what you are talking about, so surprise ...


Anyway- I am glad we are talking psyttacosis and not PDD (that is always *so* depressing)-- it's just a stupid bacteria anyway
Something we can handle.


(well ... lost one of the roul-rouls at my work to it, that was *no* fun -- just because I was not stubburn enough to force the issue and dump it at the vet. We are always short on females so it was extra extra stupid- but I'd only been volunteering there a few weeks and wasn't sure...)


==


anyway- lets just hope for the best with those 2 birds from OP.
If they've both been tested and negative, I'd stop worrying