Telling Disease From Terror

By Alice Park

In a nation already buzzing on hyperalert, almost any outbreak of an unusual malady was sure to raise the specter of a bioterrorist attack (see story below). Last week there were two such reports: an anthrax death in Florida and a cluster of cases of a virulent hemorrhagic fever along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Easy to forget but worth remembering is the fact that bacteria and viruses, even unconventional ones, do occasionally sweep through human hosts.

The bacteria responsible for anthrax, for one, nestle in soil and animals for years, sometimes even decades. Over the past century, 18 Americans have fatally inhaled anthrax spores. The victims include a San Francisco woman who played bongo drums made from infected skins, and gardeners who handled fertilizer made with ground bone from infected animals.

Similarly, nasty viral infection raging along the Afghan-Pakistani border is neither unusual nor unexpected; Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, as it is known, makes an appearance in that region each spring and summer, as ticks are its primary mode of transmission. Since March, 47 cases of the disease have been reported; at least four of those occurred in recent weeks.

--By Alice Park