Posted on 09/07/2007 2:18:16 AM PDT by neverdem
NEW HAVEN, Sept. 6 — A property in Danbury, Conn., where two people are believed to have contracted anthrax is contaminated with spores of the potentially lethal disease, state officials said on Thursday.
Six samples collected from a three-story house and a barn in the backyard tested positive for anthrax, and more samples were gathered on Thursday for additional testing, said Rachael Sunny, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.
The two patients have not been officially named, but a person familiar with the medical case who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that one was Ase-AmenRa Kariamu, director of an African drumming program at the Danbury Music Center, and that the other was a relative of Mr. Kariamu. Animal hides from Africa used to make drums are known to have been the source of anthrax that infected a New York City drummer last year.
Dr. John G. Stratidis, a specialist in infectious diseases at Danbury Hospital, said a man came in on Aug. 28 with an unsightly rash on his right forearm that was apparently a month old and that he believed came from a spider bite. The man, whom Dr. Stratidis would not name because of rules of medical confidentiality, said that he had visited several doctors and was taking a course of antibiotics, to no avail, and that he thought he was bitten while making drums in the barn behind his house.
Dr. Stratidis said the type of spider that would cause such a rash is not common in Connecticut.
“I started questioning him,” Dr. Stratidis recalled in a telephone interview on Thursday. “When he told me he works with raw hides and constructs these drums, I told him, ‘Look, this potentially could be anthrax.’ ”
Dr. Stratidis, 36, said he had seen anthrax...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
” The man, whom Dr. Stratidis would not name because of rules of medical confidentiality, said that he had visited several doctors and was taking a course of antibiotics, to no avail, “
Ummmmmmm.....
I vaguely remember constant reassurances back in ‘01 about how anthrax - especially the skin infection variety - was easily treated with standard antibiotics......
Might be something going on here that would bear watching, pending clarification.....
Pinging the anthrax list.
Want on or off, let me know.
The key is the strain. If the strain in the victims is the same strain in the hides and the original source is Africa, then you have nothing to worry about.
The victims would have gotten inhalation anthrax if they would have started beating the drums, causing the spores to become airborne for some period of time. There are 89 different genotypes of anthrax and they are fairly specific to regions of the world. The anthrax mailed in the letters came from Texas in 1981 and was then sent to Ames, Iowa; then on to Ft. Detrick. The mailed anthrax was actually a very unique mixture of genotype 62 and a mutant of 62. So far the source of this mixture is the focus of the investigation.
” The key is the strain. “
That was the concern I was trying to express — that there might be an antibiotic-resistant strain loose in the country..
(Obviously I’m not a physician or a biologist — the information I’m speaking from - ‘easily treated with antibiotics’ - is that which was publically disseminated during the ‘01 attack...)
Now I know that I was wrong.
We do have the ability to gear up to a biological threat as we can create antibiotics for most bacterial pathogens though the same process that the bacteria mutated to be a resistant organism.
The virus category is more complex and the fungi are very strange....(personal opinion of an entomologist)
The strange mixture that was in the mailed anthrax was actually more susceptible to antibiotics than the regular genotype 62 as it was originally tested. The first tests on “Ames” (I hate common names) was 6 guinea pigs and all six died.
The mailed anthrax is a mixture of genotype 62 and it’s mutant with the 929 base pair inversion on a plasmid. It is a wet lesion where almost all others produce a dry lesion.
For more information read the CDC’s account of the cases from the mailed anthrax, then read Judith Miller’s GERMS. The baby at ABC, Judith Miller’s Margano (a postal worker she interviewed) and another worker (personal email) had lesions that dripped and dripped profusely.
One thing I am sure they are going to do is compare this strain to the 911 strain. The animal hide theory is plausible, but maybe just an alibi.
This really is plausible. Need to use raw hides for traditional African drum-making. Its a bloody, fly-swarming practice. Not pretty.
Anthrax doesn't really work that way. It's NOT a contageous disease. You can't easily pass it from person to person. So, it can't really "get loose."
It's evidently just another case of someone using infected hides to make drums. It's the third case I know about. There was a case in Brooklyn last year, and another case in Seattle some years ago.
I wouldn't make anything more of it than what it is -- a case of people working with dangerous materials without taking proper precautions.
Aw, why’d ya hafta go and spoil a perfectly good fret session?
micro ping
Battle Axe, thanks for the reminder.
Anthrax ping...(thanks, neverdem!)
Remember Ottilie Lundgren? The elderly CT woman who died of anthrax, but of the inhalation form of the disease.
"Kariamu's wife, Althea, teaches at Great Plains School in Danbury. On Monday, Myrna Jacobs-Rubin -- whose grandchild is one of her students -- said Althea Kariamu brought books and houseplants from the house on Padanaram Road to her classroom, and that Ase-AmanRa Kariamu helped move them into the classroom.
Jacobs-Rubin said because anthrax spores were found in the house, the Great Plains classroom should be checked for them, and the school should close the classroom until that is done.'
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