Incidence of Chlamydia psittace in wild and pet birds and its severity for chickens and quails

A.M. Hegazy, Abd El Aleem Ismail, H.A.A. Ramadan and H.A. Baz

Abstract

Chlamydia infections are occurring in wild bird’s. Efforts to detect and identify Chlamydia are important because it is often accompanied with concurrent infection and variable outbreaks. Human being in contact with wild and pet bird’s shops are exposed to hazards of infection. In the present study 145 wild birds(doves, tree sparrows, and domestic and migratory quails) and 65 Pet birds(Budgerigars, Finches, Love birds and Cockatiels)were examined to detect Chlamydia inclusions, smears from livers, lung, heart and spleen from these birds were stained by Giemsa stain to demonstrate the presence of Chlamydia inclusions .pooling of internal organs were inoculated in ECE via yolk sac route for isolation of Chlamydia psittace and smears from yolk sacs were subjected to Gimenez stain .Chlamydia psittace detection was high from liver of pet birds 70- 100% while from wild birds was 60-73 %. In a Comparison between PCR, Giemsa and Gimenez stains revealed that the PCR was more sensitive in identification of Chlamydia psittace from wild and pet birds and the incidence was higher in pet birds (80-100%) than in wild birds (64-85%). After experimental infection with Chlamydia psittace the more pathogenic isolates were from pet birds for chickens and quails than other isolates. By PCR sequencing for ompA gene of isolated strain was found to belongs to genotype A of Chlamydia psittace.

Key words

Chlamydia psittace, chickens, quails, PCR