Cutenous Anthrax from bull to butcher
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Ameer Hamza
According to a recent report in a contemporary, most of the people who had caught a nasty disease, allegedly from a sick bull ------ which they were obliged to slaughter and turn into beef on 23 April 2010 ----- were, a fortnight afterwards, in mortal fear of being done in. Some mischievous quarters had spread the rumour that their affliction was contagious, and that they would have to be killed, to stop the infection from spreading ! The poor men, women and children, 9 out of the 11 affected on that fateful day, were therefore keeping their heads down. They were as young as three and as old as 60. Reporters looking for evidence of the disease last Saturday could find only three of the afflicted. The other six were said to be still hiding and family members refused to cooperate about their whereabouts.
This has been going on in Ghatail Upazila of Tangail,in the village of Telipara Galaganda, where cattle owner Mohiruddin, discovered to his consternation that one of his animals had suddenly fallen severely sick. To make the best of a bad situation the man quickly decided to slaughter the animal before it fell dead, and cut it up as prize meat as fast as possible, with local help. But something terrible ensued within 24 hours of the slaughtering and cutting activity. Painful pustules formed on the hands and legs of nine of those who had been involved in handling the carcass. The eruptions, they said, were extremely itchy and soon turned into festering wounds. Mohiruddin was quoted as saying that during skinning, the carcass was emitting the foulest of smells !
The medical officer in the Upazila Health Complex had no doubt it was Anthrax of the skin, a disease of livestock. This was also corroborated by scientists at the government's disease control and research institute. Those who were still suffering after catching it were victims of wrong treatment, said the upazila medical officer. The director of the National Agricultural Technology Project, reportedly, assured everyone that the government had already taken measures to inoculate the cattle in Ghatail and advised against consuming beef infected by cuteneous anthrax. There is nothing to fear from those who have related sores, assured the livestock disease experts, as this kind of anthrax is not transmitted from man to man.
The IEDCR (Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research) chief implied that the Ghatail incident was not due to any 'biological terrorism', but very much the result of a naturally occurring, common, livestock disease. Neither has it anything to do with the kind that had created such a furore in the post 9/11 paranoia in the United States and elsewhere, regarding biological and chemical weapons research, development and deployment.
The IEDCR director may be quite cocksure, but ordinary people should be pardoned for being a trifle worried. Might it be another bout of a surreptitious CBW (Chemical and Biological Weapons) test ? The anthrax in the US that was delivered in the post, mind you, is also a livestock disease. All biological weapons developers have been found to test it on several occasions over the past century. Even someone as lofty as Winston Churchill had an anthrax bomb tested on a Scottish island just before the end of the WW 2 and to this day it is said to be unfit for human habitation !
If inhaled, the anthrax-in-the-post type can have debilitating effects on humans, triggering nasty asthmatic fits. And the spores are virtually indestructible, surviving even boiling and disinfection, and can suffocate victims within hours. Does the government's public health authority have any record of the many cases of mysterious death- by- suffocation in Putia sometime in the mid 1980s ? There is no harm in asking relevant questions and hoping for satisfactory answers.
We only hope the Ghatail episode is really 'Allahr Dewa' and will pass naturally. In these desperate times one cannot afford to be too complacent. Consider that responsible scientists worldwide have been pleading for greater public awareness about the very real threat of biowarfare experiments being carried out on people, livestock and crops. They've been doing it not to spread panic, but to do the best they can to limit damage. Let us therefore keep our eyes and ears open.
According to a recent report in a contemporary, most of the people who had caught a nasty disease, allegedly from a sick bull ------ which they were obliged to slaughter and turn into beef on 23 April 2010 ----- were, a fortnight afterwards, in mortal fear of being done in. Some mischievous quarters had spread the rumour that their affliction was contagious, and that they would have to be killed, to stop the infection from spreading ! The poor men, women and children, 9 out of the 11 affected on that fateful day, were therefore keeping their heads down. They were as young as three and as old as 60. Reporters looking for evidence of the disease last Saturday could find only three of the afflicted. The other six were said to be still hiding and family members refused to cooperate about their whereabouts.
This has been going on in Ghatail Upazila of Tangail,in the village of Telipara Galaganda, where cattle owner Mohiruddin, discovered to his consternation that one of his animals had suddenly fallen severely sick. To make the best of a bad situation the man quickly decided to slaughter the animal before it fell dead, and cut it up as prize meat as fast as possible, with local help. But something terrible ensued within 24 hours of the slaughtering and cutting activity. Painful pustules formed on the hands and legs of nine of those who had been involved in handling the carcass. The eruptions, they said, were extremely itchy and soon turned into festering wounds. Mohiruddin was quoted as saying that during skinning, the carcass was emitting the foulest of smells !
The medical officer in the Upazila Health Complex had no doubt it was Anthrax of the skin, a disease of livestock. This was also corroborated by scientists at the government's disease control and research institute. Those who were still suffering after catching it were victims of wrong treatment, said the upazila medical officer. The director of the National Agricultural Technology Project, reportedly, assured everyone that the government had already taken measures to inoculate the cattle in Ghatail and advised against consuming beef infected by cuteneous anthrax. There is nothing to fear from those who have related sores, assured the livestock disease experts, as this kind of anthrax is not transmitted from man to man.
The IEDCR (Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research) chief implied that the Ghatail incident was not due to any 'biological terrorism', but very much the result of a naturally occurring, common, livestock disease. Neither has it anything to do with the kind that had created such a furore in the post 9/11 paranoia in the United States and elsewhere, regarding biological and chemical weapons research, development and deployment.
The IEDCR director may be quite cocksure, but ordinary people should be pardoned for being a trifle worried. Might it be another bout of a surreptitious CBW (Chemical and Biological Weapons) test ? The anthrax in the US that was delivered in the post, mind you, is also a livestock disease. All biological weapons developers have been found to test it on several occasions over the past century. Even someone as lofty as Winston Churchill had an anthrax bomb tested on a Scottish island just before the end of the WW 2 and to this day it is said to be unfit for human habitation !
If inhaled, the anthrax-in-the-post type can have debilitating effects on humans, triggering nasty asthmatic fits. And the spores are virtually indestructible, surviving even boiling and disinfection, and can suffocate victims within hours. Does the government's public health authority have any record of the many cases of mysterious death- by- suffocation in Putia sometime in the mid 1980s ? There is no harm in asking relevant questions and hoping for satisfactory answers.
We only hope the Ghatail episode is really 'Allahr Dewa' and will pass naturally. In these desperate times one cannot afford to be too complacent. Consider that responsible scientists worldwide have been pleading for greater public awareness about the very real threat of biowarfare experiments being carried out on people, livestock and crops. They've been doing it not to spread panic, but to do the best they can to limit damage. Let us therefore keep our eyes and ears open.