Anthrax: Four patients probably escaped from a Russian hospital

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It sounds like the beginning of a thriller: Five patients come to a Russian hospital with a dangerous bacterial infection. Four of them refuse treatment. They escape – against the instructions of their doctors. In the knowledge that they carry the bacteria on and could infect other people with it.

Russian news agency reports on four escaped patients

According to the Russian state news agency “Tass”, what sounds like a scary story really happened. This now quotes a message from the health authorities in which they describe the incident.

The patients suffering from anthrax are in “a satisfactory condition”. However, according to the hygiene regulations, they should only have been released after all symptoms of the disease on the skin have healed. Because: “Transmission of the infection from person to person is quite rare, but possible.” This is particularly the case if the skin ulcers of a patient have not completely healed.

This is behind anthrax (anthrax)

According to the report, the five patients were infected with a pathogen that causes anthrax, also called anthrax. As the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) writes, this is “a zoonosis that is widespread worldwide, but which occurs very rarely in most industrialized nations”.

Disease progression:

The Russian patients apparently suffer from one Hautmilzbrand. This is the most common form of anthrax. The pathogen penetrates through the smallest injuries to the skin.

“At the site of infection, a rapidly progressing, painless inflammation develops, which develops via one or more fluid-filled blisters into a black scab-covered ulcer, the so-called anthrax carbuncle,” describes the RKI. The inflammation is not painful, but can spread through the lymphatic system and thus trigger sepsis. At the same time, according to the RKI, there is another dangerous complication: anthrax meningitis.

If left untreated, cutaneous anthrax leads to death in ten to 40 percent of cases, but can be treated and cured well if antibiotics are administered in good time.

Infection:

In addition to skin anthrax, there are three other routes of infection:

inhalation anthrax: This can develop when aerosols contaminated with spores are inhaled.
Gastrointestinal anthrax: This occurs after eating contaminated meat products from diseased animals.
Injection anthrax: He follows ..

Transmission:

“Direct anthrax transmission from person to person does not usually take place,” emphasizes the RKI. “However, it cannot be ruled out that in the case of skin anthrax, very close contact in individual cases can lead to both self-infection and transmission of the infection to another person.” Strict hygiene measures must therefore be observed.

The risk group:

The risk of infection is increased for people who process animal skins and fur, animal bones and bone products and other animal material. Even those who work in veterinary medicine, agriculture, forestry and hunting – provided they come into contact with infected animals. In this context, isolated cases of anthrax in humans have also repeatedly occurred in Europe. And there is another group that is at risk: “Since 2000, cases of injection anthrax in drug addicts who had been infected with heroin suspected to be contaminated with spores have been reported in Europe,” the RKI continues. “Repeated cases of anthrax infections after intravenous heroin use have also been observed in Germany in recent years, which were connected to a larger outbreak in Great Britain.”