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Ten Things You Need To Know About Anthrax

(CNN) -- The following questions and answers about anthrax are provided courtesy of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

1. What is anthrax?

Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. It most commonly occurs in mammal such cattle, sheep, goats, camels and antelopes, but can also occur in humans when they are exposed to infected animals or tissue from infected animals.

2. How common is anthrax and who can get it?

Anthrax is most common in agricultural regions where it occurs in animals. Humans infected with anthrax usually have been exposed to infected animals or their products through their occupation. Workers who are exposed to dead animals and animal products from other countries where anthrax is more common may become infected with Bacillus anthracis.

3. How is anthrax transmitted?

Anthrax infection can occur in three forms: cutaneous (skin), inhalation, and gastrointestinal. Spores can live in the soil for years, and humans can become infected with anthrax by handling products from infected animals or by inhaling anthrax spores from contaminated animal products. Eating undercooked meat from infected animals also can spread the disease. It is rare to find infected animals in the United States.

4. What are the symptoms of anthrax?

They vary depending on how the disease was contracted, but symptoms usually occur within seven days.

- Cutaneous: About 95 percent of 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 of infected animals. It begins as a raised itchy bump that resembles an insect bite, but soon turns into a painless ulcer, usually one to three centimeters in diameter usually with a black center in the middle. Lymph glands in the adjacent area may swell. About 20 percent of untreated cases result in death. The employee at NBC who contracted anthrax has cutaneous anthrax.

- Inhalation: Initial symptoms may resemble a common cold, but lead to severe breathing problems and shock after several days. Inhalation anthrax is usually fatal. An employee of a Florida tabloid publishing company contracted inhalation anthrax and died.

- Intestinal: This form of anthrax may follow the consumption of contaminated meat and is characterized by an acute inflammation of the intestinal tract. Initial signs include nausea, loss of appetite, vomiting and fever, followed by abdominal pain, vomiting blood and severe diarrhea. Between 25 percent and 60 percent of cases are fatal.

5. Where is anthrax usually found?

Anthrax is global. 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 elsewhere.

6. Can anthrax be spread from person to person?

Direct, person-to-person spread of anthrax is extremely unlikely. It is not contagious.

7. How do you kill anthrax spores?

Anthrax spores are very hardy. They have been known to survive for 80 years in the ground, resisting heat, drought and other hardships.

There is a lot of interest in irradiating mail to kill anthrax bacteria, using the kind of technology the food safety industry has developed. Ultraviolet light could kill anthrax on the surface of items, but not inside envelopes or packages. High heat for long duration can also kill anthrax. But that temperature would burn mail. Most experts discount the idea that ironing mail would do any good.

Sandia National Laboratories is working on a bacteria-killing agent to clean contaminated offices. Antibiotics can be effective anthrax-killers in an infected person, especially if someone contracts cutaneous anthrax and gets prompt treatment.

8. Is there a way to prevent infection?

In countries where anthrax is common and vaccination levels of animal herds are low, humans should avoid contact with livestock and animal products and not eat meat that has not been properly prepared.

Also, an anthrax vaccine has been licensed for use in humans. It is reported to be 93 percent effective.

9. What is the anthrax vaccine?

It is manufactured and distributed by BioPort Corp. Of Lansing, Michigan. It is a cell-free filtrate vaccine, which means it contains no dead or live bacteria in the preparation. Anthrax vaccines intended for animals should not be used in humans.

10. Who should get vaccinated against anthrax?

The CDCP's advisory committee on immunization practices recommends vaccination for the following:

- People who work directly with the organism in the laboratory

- People who work with imported animal hides or furs in areas where standards are insufficient to prevent exposure to anthrax spores.

- People who handle potentially infected animal products in high-incidence areas. (Incidence is low in the United States, but veterinarians who travel to work in other countries where the incidence is higher should consider getting vaccinated.)

- Military personnel deployed to areas with high risk for exposure to the organism (as when it is used as a biological warfare weapon).

Pregnant women should be vaccinated only if absolutely necessary.

The anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program in the U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office can be reached at 1-877-GETVACC (1-877-438-8222). Http://www.Anthrax.Osd.Mil

History Of Biowarfare

  History of Biowarfare

Medieval SiegeAmerican RevolutionWW IWW IICold WarSoviet "Superbugs"Iraq's Secret WeaponsThe CultsAnthrax Attacks

Medieval Siege In the 14th and 15th centuries, little was known about how germs cause disease. But according to medieval medical lore, the stench of rotting bodies was known to transmit infections. So when corpses were used as ammunition, they were no doubt intended as biological weapons.

Three cases are well-documented:

1340Attackers hurled dead horses and other animals by catapult at the castle of Thun L'Eveque in Hainault, in what is now northern France. The defenders reported that "the stink and the air were so abominable...They could not long endure" and negotiated a truce.

1346As Tartars launched a siege of Caffa, a port on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea, they suffered an outbreak of plague. Before abandoning their attack, they sent the infected bodies of their comrades over the walls of the city. Fleeing residents carried the disease to Italy, furthering the second major epidemic of "Black Death" in Europe.

1422At Karlstein in Bohemia, attacking forces launched the decaying cadavers of men killed in battle over the castle walls. They also stockpiled animal manure in the hope of spreading illness. Yet the defense held fast, and the siege was abandoned after five months.

American Revolution While the first true vaccine for smallpox was not invented until 1796, the practice of deliberately inoculating people with a mild form of the disease was established decades earlier. The British military likely employed such deliberate infection to spread smallpox among forces of the Continental Army.

The British routinely inoculated their own troops, exposing soldiers to the material from smallpox pustules to induce a mild case of disease and, once they recovered, life-long immunity. But in Boston, and perhaps also Quebec, the British may have forced smallpox on civilians. As they fled the besieged cities these civilians, the British hoped, would carry smallpox to rebel troops.

In Boston the mission seems to have failed; the infected civilians were quarantined and thus kept from Continental soldiers. But in Quebec, smallpox swept through the Continental Army, helping to prompt a retreat.

Using smallpox as a weapon was not unprecedented for the British military; Native Americans were the targets of attack earlier in the century. One infamous and well-documented case occurred in 1763 at Fort Pitt on the Pennsylvania frontier. British Gen. Jeffery Amherst ordered that blankets and handkerchiefs be taken from smallpox patients in the fort's infirmary and given to Delaware Indians at a peace-making parley.

World War I By the time of The Great War, the germ theory of disease was well established; scientists grasped how microbes such as bacteria and viruses transmit illness. During the war, German scientists and military officials applied this knowledge in a widespread campaign of biological sabotage.

Their target was livestock—the horses, mules, sheep, and cattle being shipped from neutral countries to the Allies. The diseases they cultivated as weapons were glanders and anthrax, both known to ravage populations of grazing animals in natural epidemics. By infecting just a few animals, through needle injection and pouring bacteria cultures on animal feed, German operatives hoped to spark devastating epidemics.

Secret agents waged this campaign in Romania and the U.S. From 1915-1916, in Argentina from roughly 1916-1918, and in Spain and Norway (dates and details are obscure). Despite the claims of some agents, their overall impact on the war was negligible.

The much more apparent horrors of chemical warfare led, in 1925, to the Geneva Protocol. It prohibits the use of chemical and biological agents, but not research and development of these agents.

The United States signed the Protocol, yet 50 years passed before the U.S. Senate voted to ratify it. Japan also refused to ratify the agreement in 1925.

World War II While Germany dabbled with biological weapons in World War I, the Japanese military practiced biowarfare on a mass scale in the years leading up to and throughout World War II. Directed against China, the onslaught was spearheaded by a notorious division of the Imperial Army called Unit 731.

In occupied Manchuria, starting around 1936, Japanese scientists used scores of human subjects to test the lethality of various disease agents, including anthrax, cholera, typhoid, and plague. As many as 10,000 people were killed.

In active military campaigns, several hundred thousand people—mostly Chinese civilians—fell victim. In October 1940, the Japanese dropped paper bags filled with plague-infested fleas over the cities of Ningbo and Quzhou in Zhejiang province. Other attacks involved contaminating wells and distributing poisoned foods. The Japanese army never succeeded, though, in producing advanced biological munitions, such as pathogen-laced bombs.

As the leaders of Unit 731 saw Japan's defeat on the horizon, they burned their records, destroyed their facilities, and fled to Tokyo. Later, in the hands of U.S. Forces, they brokered a deal, offering details of their work in exchange for immunity to war crimes prosecution.

By the end of WWII, the Americans and Soviets were far along on their own paths in developing biological weapons.

Cold War While ignited by World War II, bioweapons programs in the Soviet Union and the U.S. Reached new heights in the anxious climate of the Cold War. Both nations explored the use of hundreds of different bacteria, viruses, and biological toxins. And each program devised sophisticated ways to disperse these agents in fine-mist aerosols, to package them in bombs, and to launch them on missiles.

In 1969, the U.S. Military celebrated the success of a massive field test in the Pacific. The wargame—involving a fleet of ships, caged animals, and the release of lethal agents—provided proof of the impact of bioweapons. Little did the U.S. Team know, however, that Soviet spies were in nearby waters, collecting samples of the agents tested.

At the end of 1969, likely prompted by Vietnam War protests, President Richard Nixon terminated the offensive biological warfare program and ordered all stockpiled weapons destroyed. From this point on, U.S. Researchers switched their focus to defensive measures such as developing "air-sniffing" detectors.

In 1972, the U.S. And more than 100 nations sign the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, the world's first treaty banning an entire class of weapons. The treaty bars possession of deadly biological agents except for defensive research. Yet no clear mechanisms to enforce the treaty existed. And just as it signed the treaty, the Soviet Union fired up its offensive program.

Soviet "Superbugs"

In 1979, a rare outbreak of anthrax disease in the city of Sverdlovsk killed nearly 70 people. The Soviet government publicly blamed contaminated meat, but U.S. Intelligence sources suspected the outbreak was linked to secret weapons work at a nearby army lab.

In 1992, Russia allowed a U.S. Team to visit Sverdlovsk. The team's investigation turned up telltale evidence in the lungs of victims that many died from inhalation anthrax, likely caused by the accidental release of aerosolized anthrax spores from the military base. Given the hundreds of tons of anthrax the Sverdlovsk facility could produce, the release of just a small amount of spores was fortunate.

News of the immensity of the Soviets' biological weapons program began to reach the West in 1989, when biologist Vladimir Pasechnik defected to Britain. The stories he told—of genetically altered "superplague," antibiotic-resistant anthrax, and long-range missiles designed to spread disease—were confirmed by later defectors like Ken Alibek and Sergei Popov.

The Soviet program was spread over dozens of facilities and involved tens of thousands of specialists. In the late 1980s and 1990s, many of these scientists became free agents—with dangerous knowledge for sale.

Iraq's Secret Weapons As the Soviet Union's program began to crumble in the 1990s, and scientists' salaries dwindled, some bioweapons experts may have been lured to Iraq. Iraq launched its own bioweapons program around 1985 but initially lacked the expertise to develop sophisticated arms.

By the time of the Gulf War cease-fire in 1991, however, Iraq had weaponized anthrax, botulinum toxin, and aflatoxin and had several other lethal agents in development. Inspectors from the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) spent frustrating years chasing down evidence of the program, which Iraq repeatedly denied existed. The UNSCOM team found that Iraq's stockpile included Scud missiles loaded to deliver disease.

Iraq is known to have unleashed chemical weapons in the 1980s, both during the Iran-Iraq war and against rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq. But there is no evidence that the Iraqi state has ever used its biological arsenal.

What is almost certain, though, is that this arsenal still exists in 2001. In fact, with the aid of former Soviet experts and UNSCOM inspectors kept at bay, the Iraqi arsenal is likely growing in power.

The Cults In 1984, followers of the Indian guru Bagwan Shree Rajneesh, living on a compound in rural Oregon, sprinkled Salmonella on salad bars throughout their county. It was a trial run for a proposed later attack. The Rajneeshees' scheme was to sicken local citizens and thus prevent them from voting in an upcoming election.

The trial attack was successful; it triggered more than 750 cases of food poisoning, 45 of which required hospitalization. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched an investigation but concluded that the outbreak was natural. It took a year, and an independent police investigation, to discover the true source of the attack.

While this first bioterrorist act on American soil went almost unnoticed, a decade later the work of another cult sparked a flurry of media coverage and government response.

In 1995, the apocalyptic religious sect Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas in a Tokyo subway, killing 12 commuters and injuring thousands. The cult also had enlisted Ph.D. Scientists to launch biological attacks. Between 1993 and 1995, Aum Shinrikyo tried as many as 10 times to spray botulinum toxin and anthrax in downtown Tokyo.

Just why the attacks failed is not known, but some experts suspect the cult did not sufficiently refine the particle size of its agents and that it was working with an avirulent strain of anthrax.

Anthrax Attacks For more than two decades, bioterrorism experts warned that America may be vulnerable to attack with biological weapons. In the fall of 2001, these warnings took on a new urgency.

A week after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, a letter containing anthrax spores was mailed to Tom Brokaw at NBC News in New York. Two other letters with nearly identical handwriting, venomous messages, and lethal spores arrived at the offices of the New York Post and Senator Tom Daschle in Washington, D.C.

By the end of the year, 18 people had been infected with anthrax, five people had died of the inhaled form of the disease, and hundreds of millions more were struck by anxiety of the unknown.

As New York Times reporter Judith Miller notes in NOVA's "Bioterror," the anthrax-laced letters sparked "mass disruption" rather than "mass destruction."

But the story is continuing to unfold.

Photos: (1) WGBH/NOVA; (2,5) National Archives and Records Administration; (3) Native Web, www.Nativeweb.Org; (4, 6-10) Corbis Images.

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©Updated February 2002

 

The Siberian Plague

Svetlana Arkhangelskaya, Russia beyond THe headlines

As global warming melts the permafrost, anthrax and other pathogens arise from their centuries-old slumber

Russian scientists have contained an outbreak of the Siberian plague, a bacterial infection known in the West as anthrax, but they believe global warming will bring back even more pathogens, such as those dormant in the frozen remains of mammoths.

In Russia's Far North, in the Yamalo-Nenets region, authorities have been fighting an outbreak of the Siberian plague, which is called anthrax in the West. More than 2,000 reindeer have died, and 90 local tribe members have been hospitalized, of which 53 are children. In the beginning of August, a 12-year old boy died in hospital."Children were infected as a reuslt of traditional customs," said Anna Popova, head of Russia's public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor. Some families in Yamalo-Nenets still drink deer blood and eat raw meat. In accordance with tradition, children remove the reindeer veins with their teeth. "They make threads out of reindeer blood vessels," Popova explained. She added that it was impossible to avoid infection in such a situation.

Some Nenets still drink deer blood, which is rich in vitamins

A local girl is getting back home from the hospital

Deer vaccinated in the Yamal region

The medical tent in the Yamal region

A local boy is playing with the baby deer

Private property, such as teepees, sleighs, clothes, and household items were burned in order to contain the infection. A massive vaccination campaign is underway in the region for both people and animals. Drones are monitoring the situation from the air.

The worse anthrax outbreak in Russia (USSR) occurred in spring 1979 in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk), leaving 64 people dead. From 2009 to 2014, there were 40 recorded anthrax cases in Russia, 43 percent more than in the previous five years. The infections were recorded in the North Caucasus, and the South and Siberian districts.

Big mistake

Russia has not maintained the system for mandatory deer vaccination that existed in the Soviet Union

Anthrax spores are not destroyed by extreme cold temperatures, and can live for over 100 years.

The recent month-long temperatures of 35-degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) are the main reason for the epidemic in Yamal. The heat melted the top layer of the permafrost, which in some places contains anthrax spores. The spores are not destroyed by extreme cold temperatures, and can live for over 100 years.

The spores, along with reindeer moss, were ingested by animals already weakened by the heat. Also, the spores may have entered the water supply, something scientists are currently looking into.

The excess reindeer population is another problem. More than 700,000 raindeer live in the Yamal region – 44 percent of Russia's total herd. Scientists say that the region's pastures are big enough only for 100-150,000 animals.

More than 700,000 deer live in the Yamal region – 44 percent of Russia's total herd. Scientists say that the region's pastures are big enough only for 100-150,000 animals

"Too many deer hooves strike the land, destroying the vegetation cover, and this increases the threat of kicking up and spreading infection. The permafrost is exposed, and the reindeer ingest the infected dirt along with the plants."

Vladimir Bogdanov

Director of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Russian Academy of Science

Moreover, Russia has not maintained the system for mandatory deer vaccination that existed in the Soviet Union. In 1967 the Yamal territory was recognized as free of anthrax, and so in 2007 the regional government stopped inoculating the animals.

"A very serious mistake was made in 2007. Russia continued vaccinating theneighboring regions, such as Yurga, Komi, and Nenets, but for some reason it was decided that Yamal, with the largest herds in the world, did not need to vaccinate its reindeer."

Dmitry Kobylkin

Yamal's governor

Pastures of death

Scientists are worried about the burial grounds of infected animals.

"Concerning the old animal burials, some carcasses were taken away by scavengers, but some remained on the ground, which a year later was already covered with vegetation. The Soviet Agriculture Ministry previously kept track of the burials. With the collapse of the USSR several villages disappeared, neighborhoods changed names, and overall there was a mess."

Nikolai Melnik

Professor of veterinary sciences, associate fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences

Old car tires, special fire mixtures, and oil products guarantee the prolonged burning of the reindeer carcasses. This is the only way that the spores can be thoroughly destroyed.

Such burials, or "pastures of death," exist in other northern regions. For example, in Yakutia in Eastern Siberia there are an estimated 285 burial areas with the Siberian plague, according to the region's veterinary service. But of these 285, authorities only know the exact whereabouts of 77 burial areas. The other 208 burial areas are located in places inaccessible to transportation. Fortunately, the republic carries out mandatory vaccination.

The animals that died this summer are now being destroyed by biological protection unit of the Russian Armed Forces. Old car tires, special fire mixtures, and oil products guarantee long burning of the reindeer carcasses. Then, the ground is processed with a disinfectant. This is the only way that the spores can be thoroughly destroyed.

"There are no roads and communications here, and it is practically impossible to transport carcasses to a place without something dripping or without a limb falling off. This could create many more burials in the tundra. That's why each deer carcass is burned individually on the spot.''

Alexander Sokolov

Deputy director of the Arctic Scientific Research Station, the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology

The Yamal region produces more than 2,500 tons of reindeer meat annually, and plans to increase the amount to 4,000 tons by 2017. At the moment, there is a temporary ban on the sale of reindeer meat, antlers and hides. If the situation soon normalizes, traditional preparation of venison will begin in October or November.

Mammoth infections

What surprise will global warming bring next?

Entirely new and unknown infections lodged in mammoth remains could become a problem.

Scientists believe that forgotten and previously eradicated diseases from the 18th and 19th centuries, such as smallpox, may reappear. In addition, entirely new and unknown infections lodged in mammoth remains could become a problem.

"Two years ago the loss of reindeer was much greater when an icy rain pelted the snowy tundra in the spring, covering the surface with a hard icy cover, preventing reindeer from finding food,'' said Sokolov. "For the first time foxes and the hooded crow appeared en masse, and the numbers of Arctic foxes and wolverines increased. These predators multiply thanks to abundant food sources such as deer carcasses, and then they turn to lemmings and birds; they eat partridge, curlew, goose and duck nests."

The Arctic's ecosystem is changing rapidly, according to a study prepared by the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology's Arctic Scientific Research Station (ANIS), which is located several kilometers from the infected area.

While scavengers can potentially spread anthrax, Sokolov said they are not a global threat, but more of a local one for Yamal. "If an Arctic fox eats infected meat, it will most likely die in two or three days, and it won't have time to travel far from the epicenter of the infection," said Sokolov. "And seagulls can't be infected by anthrax. The disease can only spread 10 kilometers at most."Still, local authorities have already banned hunting waterfowl, and they recommend residents not to gather mushrooms and berries, which Yamal is famous for.

Russia develops new anthrax vaccine

Specialists from the Moscow-based Russian National Scientific Research and Technological Institute of Biological Industry have developed a new and more effective anthrax vaccine for reindeer and cattle. The drug will be on the market in 2017.

Scientists said the new drug surpasses existing ones because it contains vaccines for two diseases – anthrax and necrosis, which causes purulent lesions in hooves that subsequently wither away.

"There has long been a need for a combined vaccine because it is very difficult and costly for reindeer herders to vaccinate their animals," said the vaccine's developer, Nikolai Melnik, a professor of veterinary sciences. "Usually anthrax vaccines are given once a year in the fall, and for necro-bacteriosis once every six months. Now herders can innoculate once a year. It is cheaper, and immunity develops in about 21 days."

Tests on the vaccine have been successful. In the past 18 months more than 1,500 reindeer in Yakutia were inoculated. Animals are vaccinated using a low-pressure spray, allowing the deer's skin to quickly absorb the drug and preventing other animals from being infected with a dirty needle. The drug does not freeze at a temperature of minus 30 Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), and it is suitable for the harsh conditions of the Russian North.

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