Human psittacosis linked to a bird distributor in Mississippi--Massachusetts and Tennessee, 1992

During April-May 1992, CDC was notified of a possible outbreak of psittacosis involving members of two families in Massachusetts and Tennessee who had recently purchased birds as pets. In the subsequent investigation of this problem, human psittacosis was defined as a fourfold rise in complement-fixing antibody titer to > or = 32 or a single titer of > or = 32 in a patient with fever and/or respiratory symptoms. This report summarizes the investigation of this problem.