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Psittacosis
11 min read
Also known as: parrot disease · ornithosis · avian chlamydia · Chlamydia psittaci · parrot fever · bird keeper's lung · psittacosis infection · bird disease chlamydia · ornithosis pneumonia · parrot pneumonia
Your Body Is Speaking
Psittacosis is a rare bacterial pneumonia caused by Chlamydophila psittaci — a pathogen that normally lives in birds and only in exceptional cases crosses over to humans. Whoever falls ill has usually had close contact with a bird: a budgerigar, a parrot, a pigeon, a canary. Fever, cough, headache, pneumonia. The medical treatment is clear: antibiotics, often successful, the body comes to rest.
But the deeper question remains. Why precisely this illness? Why an infection that comes from beings that sing, that fly, that learn to speak, that live in cages? Why does this pathogen — which remains harmless for most people — strike precisely you?
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