Mahendra Pal*

Founder of Narayan Consultancy on Veterinary Public Health and Microbiology, Anand, India

*Corresponding Author: Mahendra Pal, Founder of Narayan Consultancy on Veterinary Public Health and Microbiology, Anand, India.

Received: March 13, 2018; Published: April 30, 2018

DOI: 10.31080/ASMI.2018.01.0050

Citation: Mahendra Pal. “Anthrax: A Neglected Bacterial Zoonosis of Major Public Health Concern”. Acta Scientific Microbiology 1.5 (2018).

   Neglected zoonotic diseases, which received less attention, are caused by a variety of pathogens, and are prevalent in tropical and subtropical countries of the world affecting large numbers of people. There are several neglected zoonoses, such as brucellosis, rabies, leptospirosis, plague, anthrax, echinococcosis, leishmaniasis, taeniasis/cysticercosis, and schistosomiasis. Most of the neglected diseases occur in developing nations, which have inadequate medical facilities, and poor environmental sanitation. Among these, anthrax is a potentially fatal and highly contagious neglected bacterial zoonosis, which is recorded from many countries of the world including India. It acts as a double-wedged weapon, one by causing serious and fatal illness in humans, and other by producing a great economic loss to the livestock industry. The history of anthrax goes back to year 1976 when Robert Koch, was successful to culture Bacillus anthracis in pure form. Later, in 1881, Louis Pasteur developed first effective live bacterial vaccine against anthrax. The zoonotic significance of B. anthracis was established by Frederick Brauceli, a German Veterinarian, who first demonstrated the bacterium in the blood of man and then transmitted the infection to sheep. Anthrax is also known by several names, such as Charbon, Malignant oedema, Malignant pustule, Rag pickers disease, Splenic fever and Wool sorter’s disease.

Copyright: © 2018 Mahendra Pal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.