Personal protection of animal anthrax

Workers in animal epidemic prevention and quarantine, laboratory diagnosis, farms, livestock products and leather processing enterprises should attach great importance to personal protection, and relevant personnel involved in epidemic treatment should wear protective clothing, masks and gloves for self-protection.

Bacillus anthracis and spores usually exist in soil and sheep, cattle and horses. People get infected by touching dead animals or eating sick animals. The main clinical manifestations are cutaneous anthrax (commonly known as furuncle) and malignant edema. The skin of exposed parts such as face, neck, shoulders, hands and feet is initially papules or macules. On the second day, blisters appeared at the top of the papules, and on the third to fourth day, the central area of blisters was hemorrhagic necrosis and subsidence, and the area of blisters expanded. From the fifth day to the seventh day, blisters burst and necrosis, forming ulcers and black scabs. The surrounding tissue is edema, firm and painless, and the ulcer does not fester. Then toxemia occurs, which occasionally leads to acute inflammation of the lungs, intestines and meninges, and may also be accompanied by sepsis.

If anthrax can be diagnosed as soon as possible, antibiotics such as sulfadiazine and penicillin can be used to cure it, but if the treatment is delayed, it may cause death, so patients must seek medical treatment as soon as possible. It is forbidden to skin, dissect or cook dead animals. They should be burned or added with a lot of quicklime, and buried 2 meters below the ground. If you take antibiotics after exposure to anthrax, the success rate of preventing anthrax is quite high. Patients should be strictly isolated, and their secretions and excreta should be disinfected by spore disinfection method. Avoid squeezing local skin lesions and cutting and drainage to prevent septicemia from spreading. The local area can be washed with 1:2000 potassium permanganate solution, coated with tetracycline ointment and wrapped with sterile gauze.