Bioterrorism Flashcards
What do laboratories manipulate organism to do in order for them to be bioterror agents?
Create resistance to antibiotics Inc resistance to host immunity Inc host range Adapt organism to dispersal by fine-particle aerosols Inc transmissibility by aerosol route
Category A agents
Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) Yersinia pestis (plague) Smallpox Clostridium botulinum toxin Francisella tularensis Hemorrhagic fever viruses
What is important about Bacillus anthracis that makes it such a good bioweapon?
Spore-forming
What are the natural hosts for Bacillus anthracis?
Herbivores
Likes the dirt
Which type of anthrax is most common naturally?
Cutaneous
What is the main marker of cutaneous anthrax?
Black eschar - necrotic ulcer
What is the most fatal version of anthrax?
Inhalation
What are the symptoms of inhalation anthrax?
Prodrome
Hemorrhagic mediastinal lymphadenitis, effusions
Widened mediastinum
No person-to-person transmission
What are the three anthrax toxins?
Protective antigen (binds to host enabling toxin to enter) Edema toxin (inc cAMP) Lethal factor (promotes cytokine secretion/inflammation, induces apoptosis)
What is the treatment and prevention for anthrax?
Penicillin, doxycycline, ciprofloxacin
What are some characteristics of Yersinia pestis?
Enterobacteriaceae
Gram negative
What are the virulence factors for Yersinia pestis?
LPS
Plaminogen activator - degrades fibrin
Antiphagocytic capsule
What are the clinical manifestations of Yersinia pestis?
Bubonic plague: lymph node swell, lymphadenopathy
Septisemic plague: bacteremia in the blood (100% death)
Pneumonic plague: organisms in lung from blood (100%)
What are the treatments for Yersinia pestis?
Streptomycin, tetracyclin and doxycycline
Which is the only form of the plague that is transmittable person-to-person?
Pneumonic
What are some general characteristics of Clostridium botulinum toxin?
From gram (+) rod
Blocks neuromuscular transmission
Rapid onset of symmetric flaccid paralysis w/o fever or loss of cognition
Fatal when it reaches the lungs
What are some general characteristics of smallpox?
Orthopox virus
Vaccinia is vaccine strain
Eradicated in 1980
What are the potential uses for smallpox as a biological weapon?
High potential for aerosol dispersal
30% mortality rate maybe more
Person-to-person spread
No real anti-viral therapy
What are the clinical manifestations of smallpox?
Prodrome
Rash - maculopapular to vesicular to pustules and crusts
Replication in other organs - damage and toxemia
What is the prevention for smallpox?
Vaccina virus
What are the characteristics of Francisella tularensis?
Gram (-) rod Intracellular in macrophages, hepatocytes and epithelial cells Zoonotic infections Trasmitted by ticks and deer flies Highly contagious
What is the pathogenesis and virulence for Francisella tularensis?
LPS
Intracellular growth
Induces apoptosis of infected cells
Host response is to induce cell mediated granuloma in infected tissue
What are the clinical manifestations for Francisella tularensis?
Ulceroglandular - skin abrasion
Infection of other organs
What are the main treatments for francisella tularensis?
Streptomycin, doxycycline
What is the bioweapon use for Francisella Tularensis?
Aerosolized - pneumonia
Very few organism required for infection
60% mortality
What viral hemorrhagic fever is most likely to be used a bioweapon?
Ebola
What is the pathogenesis of Ebola, Marbug and Arena viruses?
2 - 21 day in incubation
Replicates in upper respiratory tract - viremia to multiple organs - hemorrhage of endothelial vessels - shock and necrosis
Fatal 70%
What is the treatment for Ebola?
None
