Large-scale screening of nasal swabs for Bacillus anthracis: descriptive summary and discussion of the National Institutes of Health's experience.
J Clin Microbiol
; 40(8): 3012-6, 2002 Aug.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-12149367
ABSTRACT
In October 2001, a letter containing a large number of anthrax spores was sent through the Brentwood post office in Washington, D.C., to a United States Senate office on Capitol Hill, resulting in contamination in both places. Several thousand people who worked at these sites were screened for spore exposure by collecting nasal swab samples. We describe here a screening protocol which we, as a level A laboratory, used on very short notice to process a large number of specimens (3,936 swabs) in order to report preliminary results as quickly as possible. Six isolates from our screening met preliminary criteria for Bacillus anthracis identification and were referred for definitive testing. Although none of the isolates was later confirmed to be B. anthracis, we studied these isolates further to define their biochemical characteristics and 16S rRNA sequences. Four of the six isolates were identified as Bacillus megaterium, one was identified as Bacillus cereus, and one was an unidentifiable Bacillus sp. Our results suggest that large-scale nasal-swab screening for potential exposure to anthrax spores, particularly if not done immediately postexposure, may not be very effective for detecting B. anthracis but may detect a number of Bacillus spp. that are phenotypically very similar to B. anthracis.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Bacillus anthracis
/
Programas de Rastreamento
/
Bioterrorismo
/
Antraz
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Mucosa Nasal
/
National Institutes of Health (U.S.)
Tipo de estudo:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Evaluation_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Screening_studies
País/Região como assunto:
America do norte
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Clin Microbiol
Ano de publicação:
2002
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos