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Medicine

Virus deals anthrax a killer blow

Nature volume 418, pages 825–826 (2002)Cite this article

The threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is driving researchers to think up ever more clever ways to tackle infections. An enzyme from a bacterium-killing virus may prove effective against anthrax infections.

Following the deliberate dissemination of spores of Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, through the US mail last autumn, public-health officials were faced with two major problems: detecting spores in buildings and on exposed individuals, and treating those people thought to be exposed and the few who actually became infected. Testing for spores required samples to be sent to specialized labs to be cultured, and took several days — a painfully long time when the public was insisting on immediate information and action. And thousands of people who were thought to have been exposed were treated with antibiotics, usually ciprofloxacin. Fortunately, nobody treated preventatively in this way became infected; the intervention was effective because the particular strain used in the attack is wholly susceptible to the usual antibiotics. But the situation could have been much worse if the strain had been resistant to antibiotics.

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Figure 1: Investigating anthrax.

ROBERTO BOREA/AP

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research,

    M. J. Rosovitz & Stephen H. Leppla

  2. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Convent Drive MSC 4350, Bethesda, 20892-4350, Maryland, USA

    M. J. Rosovitz & Stephen H. Leppla

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  1. M. J. Rosovitz
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  2. Stephen H. Leppla
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Correspondence to Stephen H. Leppla.

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Rosovitz, M., Leppla, S. Virus deals anthrax a killer blow. Nature 418, 825–826 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/418825a

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