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Anthrax is a disease caused by Bacillus anthracis, a spore-forming, Gram positive, rod-shaped bacterium (Fig. 1).The lethality of the disease is caused by the bacterium's two principal virulence factors: (i) the polyglutamic acid capsule, which is anti-phagocytic, and (ii) the tripartite protein toxin, called anthrax toxin.
Anthrax meningoencephalitis is also nearly always fatal. [72] Gastrointestinal anthrax infections can be treated, but usually result in fatality rates of 25% to 60%, depending upon how soon treatment commences. Injection anthrax is the rarest form of anthrax, and has only been seen to have occurred in a group of heroin injecting drug users. [70]
The symptoms in anthrax depend on the type of infection and can take anywhere from 1 day to more than 2 months to appear. All types of anthrax have the potential, if untreated, to spread throughout the body and cause severe illness and even death. [24] Four forms of human anthrax disease are recognized based on their portal of entry.
Anthrax can be transmitted between livestock, wildlife, and humans. Humans can be infected when they are exposed to infected tissue or animals, and when anthrax spores are used as a bioterrorist ...
Anthrax spores are able to be dispersed via multiple methods and infect humans with ease. [4] The symptoms present as a common cold or flu, and may take weeks before appearing. [3] [6] The destructive effects of an anthrax attack on a large city may have the destructive capacity of a nuclear weapon. [4]
Five countries in East and southern Africa are in the middle of outbreaks of the anthrax disease, with more than 1,100 suspected cases and 20 deaths this year, the World Health Organization said ...
Anthrax hoaxes were sporadically reported in the 1990s, [3] including a petri dish in an envelope labeled "anthrachs"[sic] sent to B'nai B'rith in Washington in 1997 that contained harmless Bacillus cereus, [4] [5] [6] but a spate of anthrax threats followed the 1998 arrest of Larry Wayne Harris, a microbiologist and white supremacist.
Anthrax vaccines are used for both livestock and human immunization. One of the most used anthrax vaccines today is based on the Sterne strain, in the form of a live-spore vaccine for animals. A vaccine with live spores is dangerous for humans, so vaccines based on the secreted toxin protein, protective antigen (PA), have been explored.