A Rare Bird: Diagnosis of Psittacosis Meningitis by Clinical Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing

K Davar; M R Wilson; S Miller; C Y Chiu; T Vijayan

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofab555

A Rare Bird: Diagnosis of Psittacosis Meningitis by Clinical Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2021 Dec 8;8(12):ofab555. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofab555. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Authors

K Davar¹, M R Wilson², S Miller^{3

4}, C Y Chiu^{3

4

5}, T Vijayan¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.
² Weill Institute for Neurosciences, Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
³ Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
⁴ UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center, San Francisco, California, USA.
⁵ Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.

Abstract

Psittacosis is a zoonotic infectious disease caused by the transmission of Chlamydia psittaci; it often presents as a pulmonary infection but rarely as disseminated disease. Because diagnoses of psittacosis are often underreported due to infrequent pathogen-specific testing, clinical metagenomic next-generation sequencing may be helpful to diagnose such an uncommon syndrome.

Keywords: Chlamydia Psittaci; clinical metagenomic next-generation sequencing; meningitis; psittacosis; zoonotic infection.