Anthrax overview

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Overview

Colin Powell holding a model vial of anthrax while giving a presentation to the United Nations Security Council.

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Anthrax (Greek Άνθραξ for coal) is an acute infectious disease in humans and animals that is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis and is highly lethal in some forms. Anthrax is one of only a few bacteria that can form long lived spores. When the bacteria’s life cycle is threatened by factors such as lack of food caused by their host dying or by a change of temperature, the bacteria turn themselves into more or less dormant spores to wait for another host to continue their life cycle.

On breathing, ingesting or getting anthrax spores in a cut in the skin these spores reactivate themselves and multiply in their new host very rapidly. The anthrax spores in the soil are very tough and can live many decades and perhaps centuries and are known to occur on all continents except Antarctica. Anthrax most commonly occurs in wild and domestic grass eating mammals (ruminants) who ingest or breathe in the spores while eating grass. Anthrax can also be caught by humans when they are exposed to dead infected animals, eat tissue from infected animals, or are exposed to a high density of anthrax spores from an animal's fur, hide, or wool. Anthrax spores can be grown outside the body and used as a biological weapon. Anthrax cannot spread directly from human to human; but anthrax spores can be transported by human clothing, shoes etc. and if a person dies of anthrax their body can be a very dangerous source of anthrax spores. The word anthrax is the Greek word for coal, the germ's name is derived from anthrakitis, the Greek word for anthracite, in reference to the black skin lesions victims develop in a cutaneous skin infection.