Familial outbreak of psittacosis as the first Chlamydia psittaci infection reported from Turkey.

Psittacosis, also known as parrot disease, parrot fever and ornithosis, can be transmitted to humans by inhaling dried excreta of infected birds like canaries, parakeets, parrots, pigeons and turkeys. Unless it is specifically thought of and investigated, the diagnosis of psittacosis can easily be missed and without identifying the exact etiology, the disease is usually treated as atypical pneumonia. We diagnosed psittacosis in a mother and her son with Friedreich ataxia, who took care of two parrots in their house. In addition to pneumonia, central nervous system and liver involvement were also identified in those patients. Since there was no any other case of psittacosis reported from Turkey, we thought to be important to report this mother and her son as first cases from Turkey.