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Anthrax is most often found in the agricultural
areas of South and Central America, southern and eastern Europe,
Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. In the United
States, anthrax is rarely reported; however, cases of animal
infection with anthrax are most often reported in Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. The bacterium and its
associated disease get their name from the Greek word meaning "coal"
because of the characteristic coal-black sore that is the hallmark
of the most common form of the disease.
During the 1800s, in England and Germany, anthrax
was known either as "wool-sorter's" or "ragpicker's" disease because
workers contracted the disease from bacterial spores present on
hides and in wool or fabric fibers. Spores are the small, thick-walled
dormant stage of some bacteria that enable them to survive for long
periods of time under adverse conditions. The first anthrax vaccine
was perfected in 1881 by Louis Pasteur.
The largest outbreak ever recorded in the United
States occurred in 1957 when nine employees of a goat hair
processing plant became ill after handling a contaminated shipment
from Pakistan. Four of the five patients with the pulmonary form of
the disease died. Other cases appeared in the 1970s when
contaminated goatskin drumheads from Haiti were brought into the U.S.
as souvenirs.
Today, anthrax is rare, even among cattle,
largely because of widespread animal vaccination. However, some
serious epidemics continue to occur among animal herds and in human
settlements in developing countries due to ineffective control
programs. In humans, the disease is almost always an occupational
hazard, contracted by those who handle animal hides (farmers,
butchers, and veterinarians) or sort wool. There are no reports of
the disease spreading from one person to another. |
