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CASE REPORT
Heroin-associated anthrax with minimal morbidity
  1. Heather Black1,
  2. Ann Chapman1,
  3. Donald Inverarity2,
  4. Satyajit Sinha3
  1. 1Department of Infectious Diseases, Monklands Hospital, Airdrie, UK
  2. 2Department of Microbiology, Monklands Hospital, Airdrie, UK
  3. 3Department of Orthopaedics, Monklands Hospital, Airdrie, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Heather Black, heather.black{at}nhs.net

Summary

In 2010, during an outbreak of anthrax affecting people who inject drugs, a heroin user aged 37 years presented with soft tissue infection. He subsequently was found to have anthrax. We describe his management and the difficulty in distinguishing anthrax from non-anthrax lesions. His full recovery, despite an overall mortality of 30% for injectional anthrax, demonstrates that some heroin-related anthrax cases can be managed predominately with oral antibiotics and minimal surgical intervention.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2016-218316

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors DI and SS were involved in the patients initial presentation. AC, HB and DI were involved in the readmission. DI and HB produced the case report and discussion.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.