Hey Everyone!
Welcome to my blog, “The Alarming Anthrax Epidemic”.
I made the visit to the David J. Sencer CDC Museum in Atlanta, and it was quite the experience! The museum itself exceeded my expectations in terms of eye-catching visuals and overall aesthetics. Since the museum was self-guided, I did not personally need to communicate with any of the workers regarding the information I saw. I choose this site in particular (not just because was it easy on my wallet) because I am truly interested in the disease and damage side of microbes. I have constantly wondered how organisms so small are able to make such big impacts on humans, their communities, and the world. The Center for Disease Control was the perfect place for me to gain some perspective on a few of the most common diseases of the world, along with their backgrounds, origin, and spread.
The photos shown above were taken from the site visit. The top image displays a visual in the museum explaining the history of the CDC. An image of myself in the museum is shown on the bottom left, and a shot of my visitor pass leaving the museum to the right.
In my experience, I came to understand so much about the biological side to how many diseases occurred, along with social impacts that may have resulted due to the biological event. For example, individuals exposed to the guinea worm were located in areas where their water supply was contaminated with water fleas. There is not any medicinal treatment to the disease, so many global and governmental organizations came together to give countries affected new, safe water wells. This action helped the known cases of infection with the guinea worm decline drastically. There are many illnesses that world that can be prevented with the right social action.
The image above displays only a part of the visual explaining the history and impact of the Guinea Worm infecting individuals around the world.
The microbe I have decided to study is the Bacillus anthracis, the rod shaped bacterium that causes Anthrax. The first thing that caught my eye about this disease was the timing it was discovered– a few months after the September 11th attacks in New York. I thought it would be interesting to learn about how the American people would react to a new disease being introduced just months after a terrorist attack. Many were rightfully alarmed, and they felt that the security of their country was at an all-time low. They would soon come to understand that the Bacillus anthracis is derived and transmitted through spore contact. More importantly, anthrax not contagious– but we will get to pathogenicity in later posts.
The photo displayed above was the first visual I initially noticed when observing information about Anthrax in the museum. The text goes into detail about the first discovery of anthrax, the spread of the infection, and the mortalities reported.