The Zoonotic B-List
Nine stories of disease you've never heard of and what you can learn from them. In Spring of 2024, a group of UCLA undergraduate Human Biology and Society majors—HBS majors—set out to explore the B-list of diseases. But they nonetheless prevailed and together they created this amazing series stories about a B-list of zoonotic diseases, from Brucellosis to Virulent Newcastle Disease. Together, they explored a series of diseases you've never heard of and asked: what can we learn from them?
The Zoonotic B-List
Parrot fever! Psittacosis in depth
Psittacosis, also known as parrot fever, is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Chlamydia psittaci. It typically affects birds, particularly parrots, but can be transmitted to humans through inhalation of contaminated dust from bird droppings or respiratory secretions. In humans, psittacosis can cause flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and a dry cough. If left untreated, it can lead to severe pneumonia and other complications. Treatment typically involves antibiotics, such as doxycycline. Our podcast explores Psittacosis outbreaks and how we can apply approaches to Psittacosis risk mitigation and surveillance to Avian influenza.
Produced by Ivy Vo, Isiah Espiritu and Juliet Hagar
These podcast episodes were created by members of the 2024 Spring Capstone course in the Human Biology and Society major at UCLA's Institute for Society and Genetics (https://socgen.ucla.edu/). The faculty sponsor is Christopher Kelty. For questions or concerns email ckelty@ucla.edu. For more information about any of these diseases please consult the US Centers for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/) .