A man in Texas has been hospitalized with anthrax in an “unusual case” after slaughtering a dead lamb and cooking its meat.
The individual, in his 50s, said the animal had been healthy on his ranch but died suddenly, prompting him to prepare the meat and eat it with two other people.
However, a week later, he was admitted to the hospital with blisters, swelling and rotting black skin on his right arm.
Tests confirmed he was infected with anthrax, a rare bacterial infection that kills up to one in every two people it infects.
A man in Texas was hospitalized for a week after preparing a lamb that had been infected with anthrax (file image)
The patient suffered rotting black skin on his right arm, similar to this image above (stock)
However, the other two people who ate the meat did not get sick, probably because the heat from cooking the meat had killed the bacteria.
The doctors who treated him suspect that the bacteria came into contact with his skin when he gutted the infected animal.
Revealing the case at the CDC Weekly Morbidity and Mortality ReportsScientists said it was a warning warning people not to eat dead animals.
They wrote: “Processing of animals that die suddenly of unknown causes should be avoided, regardless of the season.”
Doctors treated the patient with the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, used to treat gonorrhea, salmonella and plague, as well as anthrax, and the individual recovered within a week and was discharged.
He lived in a county adjacent to Texas ‘Anthrax Triangle’: An area in the southwest of the state where the disease has historically been found.
The patient became infected after preparing lamb on Christmas Eve, with anthrax infections being rare in winter due to low temperatures.
But an unusually warm December could have caused anthrax bacteria, normally dormant in the cold months, to remain active in the soil.
The image above shows the Texas anthrax triangle (yellow) and the counties that recorded an anthrax infection between 2000 and 2018 (yellow).
It was unclear how the lamb became infected with anthrax, but in most cases, this typically occurs when animals ingest anthrax spores.
The disease can cause sudden death in sheep without apparent symptoms because it passes quickly from the intestine to the bloodstream, where it causes sepsis.
Humans can become infected with anthrax from sheep carcasses in two main ways: through the skin (if contaminated fluids from the carcass get into wounds) or by ingestion (when they eat infected meat from the animals).
It is also possible for anthrax to be transmitted through the air, when spores are carried through the air and then breathed in, or through contaminated needles.
Anthrax infections are rare in the United States, with about five reported each year, but they are always an emergency due to the high mortality rate.
The disease is famous for its use as a biological weapon, even after the 9/11 attacks, when it was delivered by mail. Five Americans died during the attacks and 17 became ill.
Those infected begin to experience symptoms between one and seven days after exposure, which vary depending on how they became infected.
For those infected on the skin, the disease first causes bumps to appear before a characteristic black eschar emerges.
But in patients who have contracted the disease through the air, they may have a flu-like illness for two or three days that then goes away before individuals suddenly begin to have difficulty breathing.
To treat the infection, doctors tend to use antibiotics to kill the bacteria and keep patients in the intensive care unit.
Anthrax was first described in the 18th century, but infections believed to have been caused by the disease have been recorded in the Bible and Homer’s Iliad.