BACILLUS-ANTHRACIS - A DARK STORY

Anthrax (maladie du Charbon in french), grown rare thanks to the vacci nation of Livestock, still exists at an endemic state in many developp ing countries. Contact with stick animals, carcasses of infected anima ls or by products of animal origin (skin, bones, wool) is the main way of human contamination. The transmission between human which could be possible has not yet been prooved. The disease in humans developps a cutaneous form in 95 % of the cases : maligant pustule giving a blakis h bedsone. The visceral forms of the disease, rare, 5 % of the cases, are nevertheless extremely serious when they are septicemic. From a ca se of visceral forms of human anthrax which became deadly, in a travel ler coming back from Gambia and Senegal, we found necessary to make th e point on anthrax in 1994 and to present the fruit of our multidiscip linary observations : Medicine, Reanimation, Bacteriology and Anatomop athology.