{"id":5476,"date":"2023-12-12T14:23:37","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T20:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5476"},"modified":"2023-12-12T14:23:40","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T20:23:40","slug":"what-to-know-about-anthrax-as-who-warns-of-growing-outbreaks-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/12\/12\/what-to-know-about-anthrax-as-who-warns-of-growing-outbreaks-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"What To Know About Anthrax As WHO Warns Of Growing Outbreaks In Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/roberthart\/2023\/12\/11\/what-to-know-about-anthrax-as-who-warns-of-growing-outbreaks-in-africa\/?sh=19dcbffb6c31\">Forbes<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anthrax\u2014a bacterial disease with dangerous potential as a biological or bioterrorist weapon\u2014is spreading at an alarming rate in Zambia and a handful of nearby African countries, the World Health Organization\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.afro.who.int\/countries\/zambia\/news\/five-african-countries-report-anthrax-outbreaks-over-1100-cases-recorded\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">warned<\/a> on Monday, sounding the alarm as health officials rush to gain control of the situation amid fears of a wider outbreak in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">KEY FACTS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Anthrax is a rare but serious and potentially fatal disease caused by bacteria that are found naturally in soil around the world, and were weaponized as a fine powder and sent in letters to politicians and media outlets in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It typically affects wild and domestic animals\u2014notably herbivores like cattle, sheep, goats, antelope and deer\u2014but it can infect humans when they come into contact with infected animals or a contaminated object. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once inside the body, anthrax microbes multiply, produce potent toxins and trigger illness, with the kind of illness depending on how anthrax got into the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vast majority of human cases\u2014upwards of 90%\u2014comprise cutaneous, or skin, anthrax acquired through breaks in the skin, with symptoms like itchy blisters or bumps, a skin sore and swelling&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/anthrax\/basics\/types\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">usually<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.health.state.mn.us\/diseases\/anthrax\/anthrax.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">appearing<\/a>&nbsp;around the site of infection between one to seven days after exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other forms of human anthrax come after inhalation\u2014the deadliest form of the disease that can arise months after exposure and trigger severe breathing problems and shock\u2014and ingesting contaminated material (known as gastrointestinal anthrax), which can cause a wide array of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/europe\/news-room\/questions-and-answers\/item\/anthrax\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">symptoms<\/a>&nbsp;that can be similar to food poisoning.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forbes Anthrax\u2014a bacterial disease with dangerous potential as a biological or bioterrorist weapon\u2014is spreading at an alarming rate in Zambia and a handful of nearby African countries, the World Health Organization\u00a0warned on Monday, sounding the alarm as health officials rush to gain control of the situation amid fears of a wider outbreak in the region. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anthrax"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screenshot-2023-12-12-at-15.22.49.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5478,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions\/5478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}