Posted on 10/08/2001 4:13:31 PM PDT by summer
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ANTHRAX FACT SHEET -- FROM THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL
(1) What is anthrax?
Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Anthrax most commonly occurs in wild and domestic lower vertebrates (cattle, sheep, goats, camels, antelopes, and other herbivores), but it can also occur in humans when they are exposed to infected animals or tissue from infected animals.
(2) Why has anthrax become a current issue?
Because anthrax is considered to be a potential agent for use in biological warfare, the Department of Defense (DoD) has begun mandatory vaccination of all active duty military personnel who might be involved in conflict.
(3) How common is anthrax and who can get it?
Anthrax is most common in agricultural regions where it occurs in animals. These include South and Central America, Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. When anthrax affects humans, it is usually due to an occupational exposure to infected animals or their products. Workers who are exposed to dead animals and animal products from other countries where anthrax is more common may become infected with B. anthracis (industrial anthrax). Anthrax in wild livestock has occurred in the United States.
(4) How is anthrax transmitted?
Anthrax infection can occur in three forms: cutaneous (skin), inhalation, and gastrointestinal. B. anthracis spores can live in the soil for many years, and humans can become infected with anthrax by handling products from infected animals or by inhaling anthrax spores from contaminated animal products. Anthrax can also be spread by eating undercooked meat from infected animals. It is rare to find infected animals in the United States.
(5) What are the symptoms of anthrax?
Symptoms of disease vary depending on how the disease was contracted, but symptoms usually occur within 7 days.
Cutaneous: Most (about 95%) anthrax infections occur when the bacterium enters a cut or abrasion on the skin, such as when handling contaminated wool, hides, leather or hair products (especially goat hair) of infected animals.
Skin infection begins as a raised itchy bump that resembles an insect bite but within 1-2 days develops into a vesicle and then a painless ulcer, usually 1-3 cm in diameter, with a characteristic black necrotic (dying) area in the center. Lymph glands in the adjacent area may swell. About 20% of untreated cases of cutaneous anthrax will result in death. Deaths are rare with appropriate antimicrobial therapy.
Inhalation: Initial symptoms may resemble a common cold. After several days, the symptoms may progress to severe breathing problems and shock. Inhalation anthrax is usually fatal.
Intestinal: The intestinal disease form of anthrax may follow the consumption of contaminated meat and is characterized by an acute inflammation of the intestinal tract. Initial signs of nausea, loss of appetite, vomiting, fever are followed by abdominal pain, vomiting of blood, and severe diarrhea. Intestinal anthrax results in death in 25% to 60% of cases.
(6) Where is anthrax usually found?
Anthrax can be found globally. It is more common in developing countries or countries without veterinary public health programs. Certain regions of the world (South and Central America, Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East) report more anthrax in animals than others.
(7) Can anthrax be spread from person-to-person?
Direct person-to-person spread of anthrax is extremely unlikely to occur. Communicability is not a concern in managing or visiting with patients with inhalational anthrax.
(8) How is anthrax diagnosed?
Anthrax is diagnosed by isolating B. anthracis from the blood, skin lesions, or respiratory secretions or by measuring specific antibodies in the blood of persons with suspected cases.
(9)Is there a treatment for anthrax?
Doctors can prescribe effective antibiotics. To be effective, treatment should be initiated early. If left untreated, the disease can be fatal.
For more information, please visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at: www.bt.cdc.gov
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Nuclear, Biological, & Chemical Warfare- Survival Skills, Pt. II
How does it grow and reproduce?
Bacillus anthracis derives from the Greek word for coal, anthrakis, because the disease causes black, coal-like skin lesions.
Bacillus anthracis is an aerobic, gram-positive, spore-forming, nonmotile Bacillus species.
The nonflagellated vegetative cell is large (1-8 µm in length, 1-1.5 µm in breadth). Spore size is approximately 1 µm.
Spores grow readily on all ordinary laboratory media at 37°C, with a "jointed bamboo-rod" cellular appearance and a unique "curled-hair" colonial appearance, and display no hemolysis on sheep agar (Figure 1).
This cellular and colonial morphology theoretically should make its identification by an experienced microbiologist straightforward, although few practicing microbiologists outside the veterinary community have seen anthrax colonies other than in textbooks.30
Anthrax spores germinate when they enter an environment rich in amino acids, nucleosides, and glucose, such as that found in the blood or tissues of an animal or human host.
The rapidly multiplying vegetative anthrax bacilli, on the contrary, will only form spores after local nutrients are exhausted, such as when anthrax-infected body fluids are exposed to ambient air.16, 17
Full virulence requires the presence of both an antiphagocytic capsule and 3 toxin components (ie, protective antigen, lethal factor, and edema factor).30
Vegetative bacteria have poor survival outside of an animal or human host; colony counts decline to undetectable within 24 hours following inoculation into water.17
This contrasts with the environmentally hardy properties of the B anthracis spore, which can survive for decades.30
(PS. I was curious myself how this stuff propagated, grew and reproduced and propagated, grew, reproduced and propagated ... through the eons of time ...)
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