A Psittacosis Outbreak among English Office Workers with Little or No Contact with Birds, August 2015

Conclusions This investigation into a probable outbreak provides evidence of transmission of psittacosis in one or more office workers with no direct bird contact. In light of this clinicians and public health professionals should be aware of the possibility of psittacosis in cases of severe respiratory illness reporting no overt bird contact and consider it on their list of differential diagnoses in situations where indirect exposure to birds is possible, but not necessarily obvious. Competing Interests The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Corresponding Author John Mair-Jenkins: john.mairjenkins@phe.gov.uk Data Availability The data underlying the findings of this study contain potentially identifying information of the study participants and cannot be de-identified. Therefore, in adherence to UK legislation enacted by Public Health England the data is only available upon request. Requests for data may be sent to Public Health England (FOI@phe.gov.uk). All other relevant data may be found within the paper.
Source: PLOS Currents Outbreaks - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Source Type: research