Anthrax is an acute zoonotic disease caused by a bacterium - anthrax rod. When anthrax attacks the human respiratory system, the infection is rapid and is most often fatal. Another bad news is that the disease is very difficult to diagnose. What are the symptoms of anthrax infection and how is it treated?

Wąglik( anthrax ) became known due to terrorist attacks. Anthrax bacillus ( Bacillus anthracis ) occurs mainly in cattle, horses and sheep, less often in goats, pigs and fur animals. Every year, several thousand cases of the disease caused by anthrax are recorded in the world. High-risk areas, or areas where anthrax occurs in animals, are: Africa, Central America, Mexico, southern and eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East and some areas of Australia. The source of bacteria, which are extremely resistant and can stay in the ground for many years while retaining the ability to become infected, are very often burying sites for animals that have died of anthrax. That is why their bodies are burned or poured over with kerosene and buried very deep. The anthrax rod or its spores penetrate the human body always after contact with a sick or dead animal:

  • by inhalation
  • by ingestion
  • through the skin.

Depending on the method of infection in humans, we distinguish cutaneous, pulmonary and gastrointestinal forms of anthrax and severe sepsis. Most often, infection is caused by minor damage to the skin.

Symptoms of anthrax infectiondepend on the way the bacteria entered the human body. Most often it enters the skin and causes a dermal form. Less commonly, anthrax infection occurs through the ingestion (through the consumption of infected meat or milk) and then the anthrax causes intestinal symptoms. If anthrax - live bacteria and spore forms - enters the body through the respiratory system, it causes the most common form of the disease - pulmonary.

Important

Anthrax bacillus( Bacillus anthracis ) is a gram-positive bacterium that grows under aerobic conditions, and produces endospores. The spores of anthrax bacilli in aerobic conditions can survive even several dozen years in the ground. Animals become infected through food or water contaminated with spores.

Skin formanthrax

The cutaneous form of anthrax(95% of all anthrax infections) is characterized by the so-called with a black pimple ( pustula maligna ).Black pimpleappears most often on the wrists, head and neck, and exceptionally on the legs, tongue and tonsils. The period of incubation of the disease lasts from 2 to 12 days, but usually after 4 days a small bubble appears on the skin, which grows (up to several cm) in 2-3 days and turns from red to black. The area around the pimple is swollen. At this stage, high temperature and general weakness appear.

The infection can spread beyond the skin changes, because anthrax can invade the body through the lymphatic and blood vessels causing sepsis, which, unfortunately, often ends in death.

If the whole organism is not infected - it takes 2 to 6 weeks for pimples to heal. Treatment of cutaneous anthrax involves the administration of antibiotics, which reduce the risk of sepsis.

The cutaneous form of anthrax has another form, but it is much less common -malignant edema . The lesion appears on the face or neck, usually at the interface between the skin and mucous membranes. The swelling is soft, painless, and surrounded by vesicles.

Patients with cutaneous anthrax who have been treated with antibiotics die rarely, while untreated mortality reaches 20 percent.

Takes a bluish tinge (like a bruise). It is accompanied by high fever, sometimes breathing difficulties, sometimes altered consciousness and delirium. The skin variety in the form of a black pimple has the mildest course, maybe even in about 80%. self-healing cases. The more severe course is in the form of edema. After the diagnosis of anthrax (skin smear), antibiotics are administered.

Important

The anthrax spores, which penetrate the lesions on the skin, are eaten by macrophages (defense cells of the immune system). Inside the macrophages there is germination and formation of vegetative forms, the so-called anthrax bacillus. The sticks then divide, break down macrophages and start releasing the toxin.

Pulmonary Anthrax

Pulmonary anthrax occurs when germs are inhaled. This is the most severe, but the least common, form of anthrax infection. For the disease to develop, the inhaled air must contain hundreds of thousands or even millions of bacteria and their spore forms.

Acute respiratory and circulatory failure in the course of pulmonary anthrax in 89% infected during the dayleads to death.

When they enter the respiratory system, they reach the alveoli. The disease develops in two stages. First it is a 2-4 day acute respiratory infection - with fever, cough, shortness of breath, headache, chest and abdominal pain, vomiting, chills, weakness - these symptoms are mistaken for pneumonia.

The second stage of pulmonary anthrax development is also accompanied by fever, shortness of breath, profuse sweating, and laryngeal wheezing ( stridor ). Pathological examinations revealed haemorrhagic inflammation of the thoracic and mediastinal lymph nodes, symptoms of haemorrhagic meningitis were visible in half of the deceased.

Gastrointestinal form of anthrax

The gastrointestinal form of anthrax occurs sporadically after eating meat or milk contaminated with anthrax spores. Spore development (1-7 days) can occur in the upper (mouth and throat) or lower (intestine) gastrointestinal tract. When the spores establish themselves in the throat or esophagus, a severe sore throat is accompanied by fever, chills, drop in pressure, increased heart rate, and sometimes signs of shock. The surrounding lymph nodes also grow larger, ulceration, swelling and sepsis occur. Mortality in these cases reaches 50 percent.

The development of an infection in the small intestine is initially manifested by nausea, vomiting and malaise, followed by severe abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea and sepsis. In some cases, ascites develops and the intestinal wall becomes perforated.

Anthrax: diagnosis and treatment

The easiest way is to diagnose the cutaneous form of anthrax - after just 24 hours. Anthrax bacilli can be found in the black pimple seed.

Treatment of anthrax involves the administration of high doses of antibiotics.

It is much more difficult to recognize the intestinal form of anthrax - you can test the stool, vomit and blood of the sick person. In the case of pulmonary anthrax, there is not much time to make a diagnosis, but when we have epidemiological data about the risk, we can use x-ray of the lungs.

How to protect yourself from anthrax?

  • Eat food only from researched sources. Farm animals are vaccinated against anthrax and the farms themselves are monitored by veterinary services. Therefore, the number of infections is not high.
  • The anthrax vaccine is also available to humans. However, it is not widely used because it causes very strong post-vaccination reactions and does not produce complete resistance to anthrax bacilli. People employed atanimals.
  • Work is underway to prepare a vaccine against anthrax, which can be used prophylactically in everyone. This is because the anthrax bacterium can be used as a biological weapon. Such cases are known in history.
Important

Research has been conducted on the possibility of using anthrax as a biological weapon for over 80 years. There are at least three reasons for this: germs are easy to obtain in artificial farms, they have a huge (lethal) power of destruction. It takes only 96 hours to grow about 1 kg of anthrax sticks - and this amount, in the form of a spray, odorless aerosol, is enough, according to UN data, to annihilate life in a large metropolis.

Category:

Infectious diseases