Community outbreak of psittacosis in a rural Australian town Williams, Joanne, Tallis, Graham, Dalton, Craig, Ng, Sally, Beaton, Sheila, Catton, Michael, Elliott, Julian and Carnie, John 1998, Community outbreak of psittacosis in a rural Australian town, The Lancet, vol. 351, no. 9117, pp. 1697-1699, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(97)10444-5. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads Title Community outbreak of psittacosis in a rural Australian town Author(s) Williams, Joanne orcid.org/0000-0002-5633-1592 Tallis, Graham Dalton, Craig Ng, Sally Beaton, Sheila Catton, Michael Elliott, Julian Carnie, John Journal name The Lancet Volume number 351 Issue number 9117 Start page 1697 End page 1699 Total pages 3 Publisher Elsevier Place of publication Amsterdam, The Netherlands Publication date 1998-06-06 ISSN 0140-6736 Summary BackgroundHealth authorities in Victoria, Australia were notified of three men from a rural town with atypical pneumonia, admitted to hospital over 8 days. Initial serological testing suggested Chlamydia psittaci as the cause. We did a case-control study to find risk factors for psittacosis.MethodsWe searched for cases of pneumonia or severe flu-like illness through family physicians and the regional hospital. We selected three controls per case from the region's electoral roll. We collected blood for serological tests and administered questionnaires to all cases and controls.FindingsWe found 16 cases of psittacosis and one died. Most cases were clustered within a small geographical area, with a median age of 58 years (range 23–76), 15 (94%) of whom were male. Keeping, handling, or feeding domestic or wild birds was not associated with illness. Cases spent a median of 17·5 h per week in their garden, compared with a median of 5·2 h for controls (p=0·04) and were more likely to have mowed lawns during the 3 weeks before onset of illness than controls (odds ratio 4·81 [95% Cl 1·08–33·37]).InterpretationWe showed that psittacosis outbreaks are not limited to direct contact with birds and pose new challenges for disease control. Modifications may be needed to work outdoors to decrease the risk of psittacosis. Language eng DOI 10.1016/S0140-6736(97)10444-5 Field of Research 111799 Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified 11 Medical And Health Sciences Socio Economic Objective 970111 Expanding Knowledge in the Medical and Health Sciences HERDC Research category C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal Copyright notice ©1998, Elsevier Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30096994 Document type: Journal Article Collections: Faculty of Health School of Health and Social Development Related Links Link Description Connect to published version Go to link with your DU access privileges   Connect to Elements publication management system Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Versions Version Filter Type Thu, 01 Jun 2017, 11:12:08 EST Thu, 08 Jun 2017, 16:16:03 EST Fri, 09 Jun 2017, 05:00:08 EST Fri, 09 Jun 2017, 06:05:43 EST Fri, 09 Jun 2017, 14:13:00 EST Fri, 09 Jun 2017, 14:16:33 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 0 times in TR Web of Science Cited 0 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 487 Abstract Views, 0 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Thu, 08 Jun 2017, 16:16:03 EST