Dozens of people in Bangladesh’s Sirajganj district have been infected with anthrax, according to district health officials. The Daily Star reports the affected individuals from Jamtoli village in Kamarkhand upazila and Koijuri village in Shahjadpur upazila contracted the serious bacterial disease after coming in contact with the meat of anthrax-infected animals.

Cutaneous anthrax lesion /CDC
Cutaneous anthrax lesion /CDC

Health personnel have been dispatched to the area and the patients are being treated.

Prof Mahmudur Rahman, director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), said the disease was a “regular phenomenon” in Sirajganj and Meherpur. “There is nothing to panic. The affected ones are being treated,” he said.

Bangladesh last experienced a anthrax outbreak in April to August 2011.

Anthrax is a bacterial pathogen in livestock and wild animals. Some of the more common herbivores are cattle, sheep,goats, horses, camels and deers. Anthrax is a very serious disease of livestock because it can potentially cause the rapid loss of a large number of animals in a very short time. Affected animals are often found dead with no illness detected.

It infects humans primarily through occupational or incidental exposure with infected animals of their skins.

When conditions become favorable, the spores germinate into colonies of bacteria. An example would be a grazing cow ingests spores that in the cow, germinate, grow spread and eventually kill the animal. Anthrax is caused by the bacterium, Bacillus anthracis. This spore forming bacteria can survive in the environment for years because of its ability to resist heat, cold, drying, etc.  This is usually the infectious stage of anthrax.

LISTEN: Anthrax in animals: An interview with Dr. Buddy Faries

The bacteria will form spores in the carcass and then return to the soil to infect other animals. The vegetative form is rarely implicated in transmission.  Strict enforcement of quarantines and proper burning and burying of carcasses from livestock suspected to have died from anthrax is important to prevent further soil contamination with the bacterial spores.

There are no reports of person-to-person transmission of anthrax. People get anthrax by handling contaminated animal or animal products, consuming undercooked meat of infected animals and more recently, intentional release of spores.

There are three types of human anthrax with differing degrees of seriousness:cutaneousgastrointestinal and inhalation.

Cutaneous  anthrax occurs when the spore (or possibly the bacterium) enters a cut or abrasion on the skin. It starts out as a raised bump that looks like an insect bite. It then develops into a blackened lesion called an eschar that may form a scab. Lymph glands in the area may swell plus edema may be present. This form of anthrax responds well to antibiotics. If untreated, deaths can occur if the infection goes systemic. 95% of cases of anthrax are cutaneous.

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