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New Anthrax Test Offers Quick Results

By Holly VanScoy
HealthDay Reporter

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  • FRIDAY, Oct. 29 (HealthDayNews) -- In the three years since anthrax vaulted from science fiction subplots into one of America's worst nightmares, interest in ramping up the nation's ability to diagnose Bacillus anthracis infections has been high.

    But the uncertainty and fear that followed the double whammy of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a series of deadly anthrax incidents through the U.S. postal system are being somewhat allayed.

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Quick ELISA blood test in June, allowing for quick and accurate anthrax testing through a local health facility or laboratory.

    "Given our recent national experience, it is obviously important to find better ways of determining whether an individual has been infected with a biologic agent such as anthrax," said bioterrorism expert Leonard Cole, an adjunct professor at Rutgers University, and author of The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story. "Our best protection against spreading any biological infection is early detection."

    The attacks that sickened 22 people and caused five deaths in October 2001 highlighted a considerable hole in the country's bioterrorism response capabilities: A definitive diagnosis for anthrax required sending blood drawn from civilians suspected of being infected to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta -- a process that was accurate, but required four hours of lab work once a sample finally reached the Georgia laboratory.

    In the high-stakes, every-minute-counts environment of an anthrax outbreak, the four hours spent waiting for lab results can be crucial to containing contamination and implementing appropriate treatments to halt progression of the deadly disease.

    In this case ELISA isn't a nickname for Elisabeth; it's an acronym for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay -- the generic term for blood work that can detect the presence of specific antibodies. The Anthrax Quick ELISA detects antibodies to anthrax. With a one hour turn-around time, it's four times faster than any previous tests.

    Using funds from a CDC grant, Boston-based research company Immunetics Inc. created ELISA.

    The researchers used blood samples from individuals known to be infected with the Bacillus anthracis for use in the test's clinical trials. The results reported to the FDA said the test detected the pathogen in 100 percent of the infected samples, and it had a very low rate of error in discriminating non-infected samples from infected ones.

    According to Immunetics officials, the Anthrax Quick ELISA test is going to be used in about 150 laboratories across the country that are part of the U.S. Laboratory Response Network.

    Patty Wilkins, a research microbiologist in the Meningitis and Special Pathogens Branch at the CDC, says the Anthrax Quick ELISA is also relatively easy for medical personnel to interpret and can be used almost anywhere anthrax infection is known or suspected to have occurred.

    Wilkins said the new test helps confirm a diagnosis of anthrax by showing that a person's immune system has responded to a protein produced by the anthrax bacteria. Anthrax is a serious infectious disease most common in wild and domestic cattle, sheep and other plant-eating animals. Humans can contract anthrax by handling products from infected animals or by breathing in or coming in close contact with anthrax spores from infected animal products such as unprocessed hides and bones.

    As the 2001 events also demonstrated, anthrax can be transmitted to humans by groups or individuals intent on creating widespread fear and terror with highly infectious organisms.

    "The bioterrorism attacks have been a learning exercise, turning many previously held assumptions upside down," said Rutgers' Cole. "Even the quantity of spores necessary to cause inhalation anthrax has come under question. Some individuals who were exposed to huge numbers of bacilli did not become ill. Others, who apparently inhaled only a few organisms, contracted the disease and died.

    "The effects were bad enough from just five or six letters, but they hint at the devastation that could arise from hundreds of letters or from other means of delivery and exposure, or from organisms that cause contagious diseases like smallpox and plague, or from a strain of illness resistant to antibiotics and vaccines. No amount of money and preparation can ever assure absolute protection, but if sensibly applied, early detection of anthrax infections can help."

    More information

    For more on anthrax infection, transmission, diagnosis and treatment, visit the CDC.

    (SOURCES: Leonard Cole, Ph.D., adjunct professor at Rutgers University-Newark, N.J.; Patty Wilkins, Ph.D., research microbiologist, Meningitis and Special Pathogens Branch, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta)

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