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.
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 outbreaks occur in the United States on an annual basis in livestock and wild game animals such as deer.
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.
A study in Cell reports the discovery of a gene that drives anthrax bacteria's toxic effects. The gene could offer a potential new target for countermeasures against the lethal toxin, according to the researchers.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new, high-throughput technique for identifying the many species of microorganisms living in an unknown "microbial community."
When spores sent through the mail in 2001 caused 11 people to contract anthrax - ultimately killing five of them - infectious disease specialists noted that the death rate was substantially lower than the historical mortality rate, which approached 100 percent.
New York city officials say a man has been hospitalized with an infection from anthrax.
A handheld sensor that can quickly spot contamination by deadly strains of the Escherichia coli bug could help prevent infected food reaching consumers.
A new anthrax antibody engineered by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin protects and defends against inhalation anthrax without the use of antibiotics and other more expensive antibodies.
Researchers at Stockholm University have found a substance that quickly knocks out the anthrax bacterium. The bacterium has been used in terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Japan, for example.
By using pathogenic fungi as model systems for understanding fungal diseases, two groups of researchers are reporting new work that offers insight into how carbon dioxide (CO2) governs the morphogenic changes that allow pathogenic fungi to survive in different environments and invade the human body
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin discovered why lung, but not skin, anthrax infections are lethal. As reported in the newest issue of PloS Pathogen (November 2005) Neutrophils, a form of white blood cells, play a key role in anthrax infections.
A video game that simulates biological, chemical, radiological and natural disasters in a major metropolitan area, developed by a team from the University of Illinois at Chicago, will be used to prepare public health workers and emergency responders for real life emergencies.
A research team from the National Nuclear Security Administration's Sandia National Laboratories has discovered that common anthrax sampling methods need improvement. The research shows that more deadly spores remain after decontamination than previously believed.
In the event of a biologic attack, physicians will be first responders and represent the front line of defense, but little is known about the ability of physicians to appropriately diagnose and treat patients infected with bioterrorism agents, according to background information in the article.
For weeks a white powder caused fear and shock for the American population: a few days after the attacks on September 11th, 2001, four innocent people became the victims of letters that contained the powder - spores of the anthrax pathogen. German researchers have now synthesized a molecule characteristic of anthrax in the laboratory which may be the basis for a new anthrax vaccine.
...as scientists try to develop new antibiotics faster than the bacteria can evolve new resistance strategies. But now, researchers have a new strategy that may give them a leg up in the race -- reproducing in the lab the natural evolution of the bacterial enzymes that confer resistance.
The lethal toxin in anthrax paralyzes neutrophils, the white blood cells that act as the body's first defense against infection, by impairing how they build tiny filaments that allow them to crawl throughout the body and eat invading bacteria.
A Flinders University research program to develop new forms of vaccine against infectious diseases has received over $3 million in funding from the United States Government's National Institutes of Health.
That's the finding of chemists at Ohio State University, who have successfully tested such molecules against portions of HIV and Hepatitis C virus RNA in the laboratory. They've also created molecules that act like ACE, or angiotensin-converting enzyme, inhibitors - drugs that are used to lower blood pressure.
A method for identifying Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, has been cleared for diagnostic use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
A new laboratory method for quickly detecting active anthrax proteins within an infected blood sample at extremely low levels has been developed by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the National Cancer Institute.
The state media in China has reported that in the northeast of the country anthrax has killed one person and infected 12 more.
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