Injection
In December 2009, an outbreak of anthrax occurred among injecting heroin users in the Glasgow and Stirling areas of Scotland, resulting in 14 deaths. The source of the anthrax is believed to have been dilution of the heroin with bone meal in Afghanistan. Injected anthrax may have symptoms similar to cutaneous anthrax, and may also cause infection deep into the muscle and spread faster. Lungs
Inhalation anthrax usually develops within a week after exposure, but may take up to 2 months. During the first few days of illness, most people have fever, chills, and fatigue. These symptoms may be accompanied by cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, and nausea or vomiting, making inhalation anthrax difficult to distinguish from influenza and community-acquired pneumonia. This is often described as the prodromal period.Over the next day or so, shortness of breath, cough, and chest pain become more common, and complaints not involving the chest such as nausea, vomiting, altered mental status, sweats, and headache develop in one-third or more of people. Upper respiratory tract symptoms occur in only a quarter of people, and muscle pains are rare. Altered mental status or shortness of breath generally brings people to healthcare and marks the fulminant phase of illness.It infects the lymph nodes in the chest first, rather than the lungs themselves, a condition called hemorrhagic mediastinitis, causing bloody fluid to accumulate in the chest cavity, thereby causing shortness of breath. The second (pneumonia) stage occurs when the infection spreads from the lymph nodes to the lungs.
While the hide was being scraped, a spider bite led to the spores entering the bloodstream. His son also became infected.The CDC investigated the source of the December 2009 infection and the possibility that it was contracted from an African drum recently used by the woman taking part in a drum circle. The woman apparently inhaled anthrax, in spore form, from the hide of the drum. She became critically ill, but with gastrointestinal anthrax rather than inhaled anthrax, which made her unique in American medical history. The building where the infection took place was cleaned and reopened to the public and the woman recovered. The New Hampshire state epidemiologist, Jodie Dionne-Odom, stated "It is a mystery. We really dont know why it happened." Croatia
In July 2022, dozens of cattle in a nature park in Lonjsko Polje, a flood plain by the Sava river, died of anthrax and 6 people have been hospitalized with light, skin-related symptoms. United Kingdom
In November 2008, a drum maker in the United Kingdom who worked with untreated animal skins died from anthrax. In December 2009, an outbreak of anthrax occurred among heroin addicts in the Glasgow and Stirling areas of Scotland, resulting in 14 deaths. The source of the anthrax is believed to have been dilution of the heroin with bone meal in Afghanistan. History
Discovery
Robert Koch, a German physician and scientist, first identified the bacterium that caused the anthrax disease in 1875 in Wollstein (now Wolsztyn - a town in Poland).