Tularemia

F.tularensis, the causative agent of tularemia, is a small, aerobic nonmotile, gram-negative cocco-bacillus. Tularemia also known as rabbit fever and deer fly fever is a zoonotic disease that humans typically acquire after skin or mucous membrane contact with tissues or body fluids of infected animals, or from bites of infected ticks (Pal,2007). Tularemia was recognized in Japan in the early 1800’s and in Russia in 1926. Tularemia as a biological weapon is the difficulty in culturing and growing these bacteria, however, it can be isolated from infected organisms. In addition, it has been weaponized by the United States and Soviet Union in the past and can be easily disseminated through aerosol release (Alibek, 1999).Tularemia could be used
Most of those affected could present with a nonspe¬cific febrile illness 3 to 5 days after exposure depending on the inoculum of expo¬sure and would subsequently develop pulmonary symptoms consistent with pneumonic tularemia (Dennis et al, 2001). However, because of the aforementioned difficulties in tularemia diagnosis and the nonspecific clinical presentation, the determination of tularemia as the causative agent may be delayed. The initial presen¬tation of cases may be difficult to distinguish from a natural influenza outbreak or other respiratory pathogens (Dennis et al, 2001). Tularemia may also be confused with another biological weapon. Epidemiological clues to distinguish tularemia from plague or anthrax is the clinical course slower with tularemia, case fatality rate, higher with plague(Inglesbyetal, 2000) and pos¬sibly the pattern of pulmonary manifestations ob¬served on chest radiograph, such as the large pleural effusions and mediastinal widening characteristic of inhalational anthrax. Pulmonary tularemia may be difficult to distinguish from Q fever, another potential biological weapon agent (Inglesby et al,