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Anthrax: Diseases
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Anthrax is a potentially fatal disease that usually spreads to people from animals, especially cows, goats, and sheep. Dormant bacteria (spores) can live in soil and in animal products (such as wool) for decades and are not easily killed by cold or heat. Even minimal contact is likely to result in infection. Although infection in people usually occurs through the skin, it can ... result from inhaling spores or from eating contaminated, poorly cooked meat. Infection cannot spread from person to person.
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Anthrax, pronounced as anthraks, is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. This rod-shaped microbe grows in soil, where it can be ingested by sheep, cows, horses and goats. Anthrax most commonly occurs in warm-blooded animals, but can ... infect humans. Anthrax spores can be produced in a dry form (for biological warfare) which may be stored and ground into particles. When inhaled by humans, these particles cause respiratory failure and death within a week.
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Anthrax is primarily a disease of herbivorous mammals, although other mammals and some birds have been known to contract it. Humans generally acquire the disease directly or indirectly from infected animals, or occupational exposure to infected or contaminated animal products. Control in livestock is therefore the key to reduced incidence. There are no documented cases of person to person transmission. The disease's impact on animal and human health can be devastating. WHO has produced Guidelines for the surveillance and control of anthrax in humans and animals.
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Anthrax, a disease of great historical interest, is once again making headlines as an agent of biological warfare. Bacillus anthracis, a rod-shaped, spore-forming bacterium, primarily infects herbivores. Humans can acquire anthrax by agricultural or industrial exposure to infected animals or animal products. More recently, the potential for intentional release of anthrax spores in the environment has caused much concern. The common clinical manifestations of anthrax are cutaneous disease, pulmonary disease from inhalation of anthrax spores, and GI disease.
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Anthrax is as old as antiquity. The Bible speaks of "the plague, which caused sudden death in livestock". The Animal Health Branch—Emergency Disease Programs has historical records dating from 1926 showing 34 anthrax outbreaks in 12 counties of California. During 1984, an anthrax outbreak occurred in the Carrisa Plains that affected 12 general areas, and killed 43 cattle and 135 sheep. Since 1991, there have only been 10 known cases of anthrax in California livestock, nine of which occurred in cattle.
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Anthrax spores may ... spread by flooding pastures with contaminated water or dumping infected carcasses in streams or ponds. Low lying ground or marshy areas are readily contaminated by flooding, and resultant stagnant water holes may serve as a source of infection. Hay that is infested with spores may account for outbreaks of acute anthrax during the winter months. However, anthrax is predominantly a warm weather disease and is rarely diagnosed in North Dakota during the winter.
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