Recent history of psittacosis in Australia: expanding our understanding of the epidemiology of this important globally distributed zoonotic disease.

Psittacosis is a human systemic disease caused by infection with Chlamydia psittaci. Shortly after reports emerged of a global pandemic associated with contact with imported parrots, Australian researchers including Macfarlane Burnet and others demonstrated that C. psittaci was widespread in Australian parrots. Australian cases over the last two decades have revealed that environmental exposure and contact with infected horses are also risk factors in an increasingly complicated epidemiological picture for this zoonotic disease.