Anthrax | Definition, Transmission, Treatment, & Facts (2024)

anthrax, acute, infectious, febrile disease of animals and humans caused by Bacillus anthracis, a bacterium that under certain conditions forms highly resistant spores capable of persisting and retaining their virulence for many years. Although anthrax most commonly affects grazing animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and mules, humans can develop the disease by eating the meat or handling the wool, hair, hides, bones, or carcasses of affected animals. When anthrax—its name derived from the Greek word for coal—attacks a person’s skin, a sore with a coal-black centre develops. Anthrax spores can also be produced inexpensively and converted into either a powder or a liquid, allowing anthrax to be used in a variety of weapons systems. Its potential use as a biological weapon has made anthrax a prime concern of countries seeking to control the spread of terrorism.

Anthrax in humans and animals

Anthrax in humans occurs as a cutaneous, pulmonary, or intestinal infection. The most common type, cutaneous anthrax, occurs as a primary localized infection of the skin in the form of a carbuncle. It usually results from handling infected material, lesions occurring mostly on the hands, arms, or neck as a small pimple that develops rapidly into a large vesicle with a black necrotic centre (the malignant pustule). There are also bouts of shivering and chills, but there is little other disability. In more than 90 percent of the cases of anthrax in humans, the bacilli remain within the skin sore. However, the bacilli may escape from the sore and spread via a lymph channel to the nearest lymph node, where their spread is usually halted. Only seldom do the bacilli invade the bloodstream, causing rapidly fatal septicemia (blood poisoning), internal bleeding, and, sometimes, meningitis. The pulmonary form, called inhalation anthrax (woolsorters’ disease), affects principally the lungs and pleura and results from inhaling anthrax spores (e.g., in areas where hair and wool are processed). Inhalation anthrax is occasionally transmitted to humans by spore-contaminated brushes or by wearing apparel such as furs and leather goods. This form of the disease usually runs a rapid course and terminates fatally due to the suffocating pneumonia that results. The intestinal form of the disease, which sometimes follows the consumption of contaminated meat, is characterized by an acute inflammation of the intestinal tract, vomiting, and severe diarrhea.

In all forms of anthrax, prompt diagnosis and early treatment are of great importance. Antianthrax serum, arsenicals, and antibiotics (e.g., ciprofloxacin) are used with excellent results. The hazard of infection to industrial workers can be reduced by sterilization of potentially contaminated material before handling, wearing of protective clothing, use of respirators, and sanitizing of facilities. Agricultural workers can be safeguarded by vaccination and by avoiding the skinning or opening of animals that died of the disease.

Farm animals that graze on contaminated pastures are susceptible to anthrax. Outbreaks in swine, dogs, cats, and wild animals held in captivity generally result from consumption of contaminated food. In the acute forms there is a rise in body temperature followed by spasms, respiratory or cardiac distress, trembling, staggering, and convulsions. Bloody discharges sometimes come from the natural body openings, and edematous (serous fluid) swellings may appear on different parts of the body. Death usually occurs within a day or two. Chronic anthrax occurs mostly in swine and dogs and is characterized by marked swelling of the throat, difficult breathing, and a bloodstained frothy discharge from the mouth. Affected animals sometimes die of suffocation. Prophylactic vaccination is extensively used in preventing anthrax in livestock. During outbreaks, strict quarantine measures, disposal of diseased carcasses by burning, fly control, and good sanitation are essential in controlling the disease.

Anthrax is one of the oldest recorded diseases, being mentioned in the biblical book of Exodus and among the Classical authors of Greek and Roman antiquity. Devastating epidemics of the disease were recorded by many medieval and modern writers. In the 16th to 18th century it sometimes spread across the southern part of Europe, taking a heavy toll on human and animal life. The causative agent was identified by French biologist Casimir-Joseph Davaine in 1863 and by German bacteriologist Robert Koch, who isolated the organism in pure culture in 1876. An effective vaccine was demonstrated by French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur in 1881. These discoveries were part of the origin and development of the modern sciences of bacteriology and immunology.

Anthrax as a biological weapon

The bacterium that causes anthrax has a number of attributes that, in combination, make it suitable as a biological weapon. In addition to being widely available—located around the world in soil and in diseased animals and their remains—B. anthracis spores are small enough to lodge readily in the lungs of humans. The anthrax bacterium has a short incubation period and is highly lethal, requiring only a small amount to cause a mass casualty effect. Indeed, aerosolized forms of anthrax sprayed over a large population centre or a massed military force are capable of lethality approaching or exceeding that of a nuclear weapon. Moreover, anthrax can be produced inexpensively, in larger quantities than can other biological warfare agents, and in facilities that are relatively easy to hide. It is more resilient to degradation from ultraviolet light than most other biological agents. Finally, anthrax can be converted into either a powder or a liquid, allowing it to be used in a number of types of weapons systems that utilize a variety of delivery means, including missiles, bombers, artillery, mortars, or crop dusters and similar aircraft.

Anthrax has been weaponized by a number of states. Before it terminated its offensive biological weapons program in 1969, the United States had a significant anthrax weapons program. The former Soviet Union developed the world’s largest biological weapons program, which it clandestinely continued 20 years beyond the date when it signed the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, which prohibited the development and stockpiling of biological weapons. Iraq, under the rule of Ṣaddām Ḥussein, also developed anthrax and a number of other biological weapons agents but claimed to have destroyed such weapons after the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91. At least 14 other nations are believed to have biological weapons programs.

Terrorists have used anthrax in an attempt to kill and frighten victims in both Japan and the United States. The AUM Shinrikyo religious sect released anthrax in Tokyo on three separate occasions in 1993, targeting downtown crowds and members of the Japanese legislature. In 2001 a number of anthrax-laced letters were sent through the mail to the offices of two U.S. senators and various media headquarters in New York and Florida, killing five people along the letters’ routes and infecting more than a dozen others.

Several effective vaccines have been developed to protect against possible anthrax infection, including Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed (AVA), the vaccine developed to protect United States military personnel. The anthrax vaccine can provide protection to most recipients, although a small percentage do not acquire complete immunity. However, if vaccinated military personnel were to encounter a massive dose of anthrax, such as might be encountered on a battlefield, even a sensitized immune system can be overwhelmed; a well-fitting mask with fine-grain filters is necessary to provide protection in such instances.