Posted on 12/03/2001 10:11:56 AM PST by Starmaker
Misconception here: Mass inoculation is not necessary to contain a smallpox outbreak. Isolating the cases and contacts, then inoculating the immediate circle should do just fine.
Just like inhalation anthrax, people who begin exhibiting symptoms of pneumonic plague have a very poor prognosis, even with vigorous treatment. It's thought that the prognosis for survival is much worse than inhalation anthrax. Most of the information I've found states that the mortality rate is 100% if not treated within the first 24 hours. Pneumonic plague is highly transmissible person-to-person and can spread quite rapidly thoughout a population. It is spread by uncontrollable coughing, which serves to spread the bacillus in tiny sputum droplets through the air. When plague bacillus is inhaled into the lungs through bioterrorism, it becomes systemic and affects the lungs and other vital body organs. Pneumonic plague symptoms include cough, bloody sputum, chest pain and difficulty breathing. It has an incubation period of 1-7 days.
All in all, inhalation anthrax is a cakewalk compared to what pneumonic plague would be. We're talking about 3 to 4 weeks of strict quarantine after a person is diagnosed. If nothing else, it would be a nightmare in terms of our public health care systems' ability to respond to any outbreak that would occur.
The good news is that since the symptoms are very similar to inhalation anthrax, physicians and nurses are now much more likely to become suspicious of anything that resembles anthrax. Hopefully, our frontline medical workers would spot the disease early enough to stop the death rate from becoming very high. Like the anthrax, people who've been exposed can begin prompt prophylactic treatment with antibiotics (Streptomycin, if I remember correctly.)
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