Journal article
SURVEILLANCE FOR CHLAMYDIA SPP. WITH MULTILOCUS SEQUENCE TYPING ANALYSIS IN WILD AND CAPTIVE BIRDS IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA
Jemima Amery-Gale, Alistair R Legione, Marc S Marenda, Jane Owens, Paul A Eden, Barbara M Konsak-Ilievski, Pam L Whiteley, Elizabeth C Dobson, Elizabeth A Browne, Ron F Slocombe, Joanne M Devlin
JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE DISEASES | WILDLIFE DISEASE ASSOC, INC | Published : 2020
DOI: 10.7589/2018-11-281
Abstract
Chlamydia psittaci typically infects birds and can cause outbreaks of avian chlamydiosis, but it also has the potential to cause zoonotic disease (psittacosis) in humans. To better understand the epidemiology of C. psittaci in Victoria, Australia, we conducted opportunistic sampling of more than 400 wild and captive birds presented to the Australian Wildlife Health Centre at Zoos Victoria's Healesville Sanctuary for veterinary care between December 2014 and December 2015. Samples were screened for the presence of chlamydial DNA using quantitative PCR, and positive samples were subjected to multilocus sequence typing analysis. The results showed a significantly higher prevalence of infection ..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Cybec Foundation and Zoos Victoria. J.M.D. was supported by a fellowship from the Australian Research Council. We thank the staff at Healesville Sanctuary's Australian Wildlife Health Centre for their assistance with sample collection, particularly Leanne Wicker, Phillipa Mason, Franciscus Scheelings, Meg Curnick, Jackie Reed, and Emmajane Newton-Dinning. We are grateful to the Asia Pacific Centre for Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory; The University of Melbourne's Veterinary Clinical Centre; and Wildlife Health Surveillance Victoria, particularly Anthony Chamings, Andrew Stent, and Samoa Giovannini, for the additional Chlamydia psittaci samples from Victorian birds included in the MLST analysis; and The Vizard Foundation and MA Ingram Trust State Trustees for their support of Wildlife Health Surveillance Victoria. We also thank Adam Polkinghorne for his guidance on C. psittaci MLST thermocycling conditions, and Glenn Browning for his advice and assistance.