What are the symptoms of cutaneous anthrax?

Cutaneous anthrax is a contagious skin disease that is spread by herbivorous animals and usually causes redness and swelling of the skin all over the body. Depending on the degree of inflammation, it can cause itching, blisters and pus discharge. Severe cases can cause ulcers, leading to nausea and vomiting.

Symptoms of cutaneous anthrax

An incubation period of 1-3 days is usually required. According to the different infection routes, it can be divided into three types: skin type 95%, and the other two types are inhalation type and gastrointestinal type, which are rare. Cutaneous anthrax lesions often occur on exposed areas such as the hands, face, and neck. The typical presentation is a painless carbuncle that rapidly necrotizes, with localized suppurative lymphadenitis. Skin lesions initially present as painless red papules, which may be itchy or burning, and then form blisters or pustules, surrounded by hard, non-pitting edema and infiltration. Blisters are both pustular and occasionally bloody, and then rupture and necrotize. Ulcers form charcoal-like black dry scabs surrounded by small lesions such as blisters and pustules. The bacteria can ascend along the lymphatic vessels to cause lymphangitis and lymphadenitis. Sometimes the distribution of skin lesions is similar to the lymphatic vessels of sporotrichosis. When it appears in loose skin areas such as the eyelids and neck, there is only diffuse edema but no blisters, and necrosis can form rapidly. Severe cases may include high fever, vomiting, general malaise and systemic poisoning. Severe poisoning can lead to sepsis and meningitis, and death within a few days.

deal with

1. Systemic treatment

(1) Antibiotics used to be the preferred choice: high-dose penicillin or cephalosporin antibiotics, with penicillin or amoxicillin injected every 8 hours. There are also aminoglycoside drugs such as gentamicin, streptomycin, and gentamicin. Macrolides such as erythromycin, tetracyclines, doxycycline, chloramphenicol, etc. can be chosen. There have been many reports of resistance to the above antibiotics but sensitivity to quinolones. It can be treated with injectable ciprofloxacin once every 12 hours. Severe cutaneous anthrax can be treated with the same drugs and doses as inhalation anthrax, once every 12 hours, by intravenous drip. In order to prevent the simultaneous occurrence of meningitis, penicillin can be considered in the early stage, which can be injected intravenously once every 4 hours.

(2) For patients with severe anti-anthrax serum toxemia, anti-anthrax serum can be injected at the same time, 100-125 ml on the first day after the skin test, and 30-50 ml each on the second and third days.

2. Local treatment

For local sensitive antibiotics, such as erythromycin and quinolone lotions, do not squeeze. It is sensitive to disinfectants such as iodine, peracetic acid, ethylene oxide, potassium permanganate, and formaldehyde. If a person is already infected, you can choose 3%~5% iodine tincture, and then add 1:2500 iodine solution to kill the spores in 10 minutes. Applying 5% potassium permanganate solution locally for 15 minutes can kill the spores. If tetracycline ointment is applied after wet compress, the effect will be more reliable.

prevention

Preventive vaccinations are carried out on cattle, sheep, horses and other livestock in the epidemic areas. When injecting vaccines, you should choose an advanced ventilation system and use advanced leather steam disinfection. Sick animals should be isolated or killed, and dead animals should be burned or buried less than 2 meters deep. Anthrax patients should be isolated and their feces and dressings burned.