http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp ... an/2148398
Oct. 10, 2003, 1:52PM
Suspicious bacteria detected
Security monitors spot germ; terrorism discounted
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Medical Writer
Two Houston air monitors that are part of a national homeland security network to warn of biological terrorist attacks have detected the first suspicious organisms, but officials say they do not suspect a terror attack.
Three fragments of the bacterium that causes tularemia were detected at the monitors in east Harris County on Sunday and Monday, officials said. Although they suspect no foul play in this case, tularemia is near the top of the federal bioterror watch list.
Tularemia is caused by a rare but naturally occurring bacterium and, for most people, is treatable with antibiotics. The germ is considered a potentially dangerous biological weapon because it is easy to disseminate, highly infectious, and can cause widespread illness and death.
The city's Health and Human Services Department, working with the U.S. Homeland Security Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned area hospitals and infectious-disease physicians to watch for human cases of tularemia after detecting the bacterium, although none have turned up.
"Everyone is, obviously, very convinced that we haven't had a terrorist attack," said Kathy Barton, spokeswoman for Houston's Department of Health and Human Services.
The Homeland Security Department has spent about $40 million this year to establish a "Bio Watch" network of sensors to screen for biological weapons such as anthrax, smallpox and plague in 30 major U.S. cities.
A spokeswoman for the agency, Michelle Petrovich, confirmed Thursday that the detection of tularemia in Houston is the first biological agent of interest detected by the network.
"It shows the system is working and protecting people," she said.
The monitors pass air through a filter and are checked for biological agents every 24 hours. The idea is to screen for infectious diseases that may not develop symptoms in humans -- and thus escape detection -- for days or weeks.
Because the incubation period for tularemia is usually three to five days, and there are no known human or animal cases, there is no evidence of an outbreak, Barton said.
After collecting the fragments of tularemia DNA, the city sent them to the CDC for confirmation. Two CDC industrial hygienists are visiting Houston to evaluate the system and help interpret the results and determine what triggered the reading.
Tularemia naturally occurs throughout North America in wild animals, particularly rabbits, muskrats and beavers.
A research paper in the May issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases says there were 885 human cases of tularemia in the United States between 1992 and 1999, with more than 75 percent of those cases occurring in spring or summer.
By contrast, another disease that can be transmitted to humans by tick bites, Lyme disease, causes more than 16,000 U.S. infections a year.
Tularemia is less common in Texas, with three to five cases a year, Barton said.
An environmental health expert at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston said the isolated detection of tularemia does not pose a risk.
"The important thing to understand is that this disease does exist in nature," said Dr. Robert Emery, executive director for environmental health and safety at UT-Houston. "What might be even more reassuring is that we now know the system is pulling samples and that these sorts of surveillance systems may be doing their job."
According to the Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies at Johns Hopkins University, tularemia was stockpiled as a biological weapon by the U.S. military in the 1960s, with supplies destroyed by 1973. The Soviet Union ran a program to develop antibiotic resistant strains into the 1990s.
A World Health Organization committee that studied the bioterrorist threat from tularemia determined that if 110 pounds of virulent tularemia were dispersed as an aerosol over a metropolitan area with a population of 5 million, an estimated 250,000 people would be affected and as many as 19,000 killed.
The disease cannot be transmitted from person to person, but as few as 10 of the bacteria -- be they inhaled, imbibed, or contracted from an animal or tick bite -- can cause infection.
The mortality rate for the disease, without antibiotics, is between 5 percent and 60 percent of cases. With antibiotics it can be as low as 2 percent, health officials say.
Tularemia found in Houston air samples
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Oh wow! :o I know they have discounted terrorism, but either way it is still a big deal.
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