Puffball bit

Usage examples of spore.

Nasal swabs to determine how widespread exposure to the anthrax spores had been were eventually obtained from everyone in the Hart building.

We had relied on our current textbook understanding of the disease: Inhalational anthrax disease does not occur unless there is direct inhalation of more than ten thousand spores.

In 1993, the Office of Technology Assessment estimated that under certain atmospheric conditions dispersion by airplane of 220 pounds of anthrax spores over Washington, D.

In fact, viable anthrax spores can still be found along the cattle trails of the Old West.

The only way to be infected is to come into direct contact with anthrax spores through one of the ways outlined below.

Experts believe that the average lethal dose for inhalational anthrax is ten thousand spores, although in view of the recent postal attacks, we now believe that a smaller number can be fatal, especially for the elderly and those with a weakened immune system.

But experts believe that illness may occur as long as sixty days after exposure to anthrax spores, because observations have shown that the spores can take that long to change to active bacteria.

In the cases following September 11, there was evidence that the anthrax spores had been specially treated so they would remain suspended in the air for prolonged periods, making them more likely to be inhaled because they could literally float out of an envelope.

Eighty years later, scientists discovered that a lump of sugar laced with anthrax by a German spy still contained living spores.

The British also conducted anthrax experiments during World War II, detonating explosive shells filled with anthrax spores on an island off the coast of Scotland.

In 1979, anthrax spores were accidentally released into the atmosphere from a secret Soviet military facility in Sverdlovsk.

Antibiotics also can be used to prevent illness after inhalational exposure to anthrax spores.

It may be that, for those individuals with high exposure to airborne anthrax spores, the antibiotic regimen should be extended an additional forty days, just to be on the safe side.

In the opening chapter, I talked about the more than six thousand nasal swab tests that were done on those who were potentially exposed to anthrax spores on Capitol Hill.

Nasal swabs are typically used to determine how far spores have traveled in a specific room or building where the presence of anthrax is suspected or has already been established by environmental sampling.