A starling roost as the source of urban epidemic histoplasmosis in an area of low incidence.

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This paper reports an epidemic of histoplasmosis that occurred during August and September 1962, in Mason City, Iowa, in association with the clearing away of a starling roost.• The first cases were among the men working at the site, several of whom had severe illnesses. These cases led to a broader investigation, and the data obtained indicated that a large number of people throughout the city were infected from this single source within a limited period of time. Earlier work (1-3) has demonstrated that the incidence of Histoplasma capsulatum infections is greatest in the rural regions of highly endemic geographic areas. In 1961, Furcolow and associates ( 4) established the relationship between urban bird roosts and the florid growth of H. capsulatum. These writers stressed the importance of such roosts as a source of infection for urban populations and suggested a possible relationship between starling roosts and high histoplasmin sensitivity in Dalton, Georgia (5), and Milan, Michigan (6). The 1962 outbreak in Mason City afforded an opportunity to delineate, in some detail, the effect of a single point source of H. capsulatum on a predominantly susceptible population.