Anthrax has hit Glasgow: the story of a desperate hunt for its source

[InvisibleEye]

A good read on Wired.com about the 2010 anthrax outbreak among Glasgow heroin users:
http://goo.gl/Ahsaz

Scotland has an estimated 50,000 heroin users, many of whom can be found on the streets of Glasgow. Today, the signs of the city's drug problem are visible even in the city centre where addicts can be seen sitting on the pavement, leaning against walls and staring listlessly into the distance. Hope House, a hostel for the homeless on the edge of the Clyde, provides a refuge for many of them.

It was at this shelter that a 35-year-old heroin addict called Donny (not his real name) woke up on a December morning in 2009 with an unbearable pain in his thigh. On most days, Donny followed a familiar routine that had been engraved upon his life by his drug habit. He would walk over a bridge across the river to a neighbourhood on the opposite bank that was once a leper colony, and is now home to council housing. There, Donny would buy heroin from a dealer and visit his partner and two children. After taking a hit in their flat, he would wander back to his hostel. But on this day, Donny could barely walk. His thigh, right where he injected himself, was so inflamed that he had trouble dragging himself out of bed. Donny's partner called an ambulance for him -- he would never have gone to the hospital by himself --and he was taken to the nearby Victoria Infirmary.

The doctors at Victoria -- as at other Glasgow hospitals -- were used to seeing heroin addicts show up with lesions in the arms, legs and other parts of the body where the users had been plunging a needle into their flesh. Such infections, the doctors knew, are typically caused by a bacterium called Bacillus cereus that is often behind food poisoning. But, when pathologists examined some of Donny's blood under a microscope, they saw a far more deadly germ. It was anthrax.

 

[The Network]

At first I was ready to post "Uh anthracis is a bacteria, not a chemical" then after I read the article I posted this:

wtf?

 

[23536]

Anthrax is coming to Glasgow on November 9:

http://entertainment.stv.tv/music/3...ax-announce-scottish-show-as-part-of-uk-tour/

---

There is still anthrax in the heroin in Europe maybe: This month:

Dead Danish Drug User Tests Positive for Anthrax

Danish authorities say an intravenous drug user who injected heroin and died has tested positive for anthrax.

The Health Ministry suspects the drug was contaminated with the bacillus anthracis strain of anthrax. The 55-year-old addict died Sunday.

Terrorism is not suspected, and the health ministry says there is no risk of contagion because the bacteria cannot be passed from person to person.

Anthrax is a deadly disease that can be treated with antibiotics if caught early.

Officials said Monday they will compare the case to two similar deaths in Germany in June.

Last week, German officials said there may be a link between contaminated heroin found in Germany and an anthrax outbreak in Scotland in 2009 and 2010, which left 10 people dead.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireSt...-tests-positive-anthrax-16739581#.UAzPrrSe6cY

 

[maxalfie]

One of our fellow Bluelighters lost a member of their family due to the Anthrax infected heroin in Scotland.
Did not sound pleasant at all, I think they thought it was smuggled in with infected animal hides.

 

[InvisibleEye]

^ Yes, the article mentions that infected animal hides were used to smuggle heroin to Scotland.

 

[Newbierock]

That's some fucked up stuff right there, I mean seriously anthrax wtff?

This made me chuckle tho.
"The same questions were on the mind of others in the room, including a burly, moustachioed detective named Derek Robertson."

 

[Bodder]

Well were talking about an outbreak from 2 years ago, which has all of the sudden reappeared,well i'm terrified and its definately making me think twice.What I cannot understand is why only a few cases popping up hear and there, from continents, to countries,???. Why not an epidemic of users getting the bug at once, does it possibly suggest that there's only a small amount of spores in the batch to kill some people with poor health and low emune systems, and somer people with healthy emune systems eventually fight it off, I find it all a little hard to understand. Apparently the last outbreak was 3 days ago, down south in London, 2 cases in Germany, and some in Denmark, weird how its only infecting a few at atime anyone agree.