Two cases of infection with Bacillus anthracis, Romania, October 2011.

Two Proteins from Snake Venom have Potent Antibacterial Effects against Bacillus anthracis and Streptococcus pneumoniae

Background: Antibacterial proteins are widely expressed in snake venoms. Previously, we have isolated two immunodominant proteins with molecular weights of 14 and 65kD from the snake venom of Naja naja oxiana (N. oxiana). It was demonstrated that they had potent inhibitory effects against gram-positive bacteria, S. aureus and B. subtilis but were less effective against gram-negative bacteria, s...

Outbreak of West Nile virus infection in humans, Romania, July to October 2010.

A total of 57 cases of West Nile virus infection (54 with neuroinvasive infection and three with fever) were identified in Romania between July and October 2010.The median age of the cases was 53.4 years, with the highest incidence in the age group 60–69 years.The case fatality rate was 8.8%. Cases were distributed in 19 districts in the southern, western, central and eastern parts of the count...

Sur deux cas l`infection accidentelle de l`homme par une souche attenuee (vaccin) de Bacillus anthracis

Bacillus anthracis Aerosolization Associated with a Contaminated Mail Sorting Machine

On October 12, 2001, two envelopes containing Bacillus anthracis spores passed through a sorting machine in a postal facility in Washington, D.C. When anthrax infection was identified in postal workers 9 days later, the facility was closed. To determine if exposure to airborne B. anthracis spores continued to occur, we performed air sampling around the contaminated sorter. One CFU of B. anthrac...

Bacillus cereus G9241 makes anthrax toxin and capsule like highly virulent B. anthracis Ames but behaves like attenuated toxigenic nonencapsulated B. anthracis Sterne in rabbits and mice.

Bacillus cereus G9241 was isolated from a welder with a pulmonary anthrax-like illness. The organism contains two megaplasmids, pBCXO1 and pBC218. These plasmids are analogous to the Bacillus anthracis Ames plasmids pXO1 and pXO2 that encode anthrax toxins and capsule, respectively. Here we evaluated the virulence of B. cereus G9241 as well as the contributions of pBCXO1 and pBC218 to virulence...