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Bongo drummer fights for life after inhaling anthrax
Sophie Goodchild, Health Editor30 Oct 2008
A BONGO drummer is fighting for his life in a London hospital today after inhaling anthrax spores from animal skins brought from Africa.
The man has been in intensive care in Homerton hospital for the last seven days and is said to be "critical".
Doctors discovered last Saturday that he was suffering from inhalation anthrax and fear that his prospects for survival are extremely poor.
He is being treated with special immunoglobulin drugs which help to fight serious infection.
He was brought in with a fever and after urgent tests were carried out, the Health Protection Agency was called.
The HPA said they had informed residents of the Hackney flats where the man lived of the infection last night but that no one would be evacuated from their homes.
Seven more people who could also have been exposed to the bacteria have been given antibiotics. An investigation is under way into how the infection occurred at the home of the man, who is believed to be a Spanish musician in his early twenties.
Experts from the HPA's Porton Down laboratory in Wiltshire are expected to carry out a full search on Monday of the workshop and home of the man. The HPA believes the man inhaled the spores as he removed the hair from animal hides to make bongo drums.
Professor Nigel Lightfoot, chief adviser at the HPA, said: "It is through making drums that exposure to and inhalation of anthrax spores on an imported animal hide has taken place. The risk to others who play these drums is very low. It is the process of removing the animal hairs that can put people at risk. It is important that anyone who makes drums from imported animal hides is aware of this risk and knows about the symptoms of anthrax."
The HPA said the infection was a very rare case of inhalation anthrax the most deadly form of exposure to the bacteria. It happens when millions of the tiny spores are drawn into the lungs. Once they germinate they release several toxic substances, which cause internal bleeding, swelling, and tissue death.
Five people were killed by inhaling the spores when anthrax was sent by post to a series of media organisations and politicians in America in October and November 2001.
Homerton hospital disclosed they had called for advice from the American government agency which handled those attacks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The HPA also put out an appeal for specialist antibiotics which have now been flown in from America.
A spokesman for the hospital said: "He is in a very serious condition. The disease is not contagious the only people at risk are those who were in close proximity to the animal hides."
The case is the first in the UK since 2006, when a 50-year-old who worked with animal hides died from inhaling the spores. Christopher Norris, of Stobs in the Scottish Borders, was killed by septicaemia brought on by anthrax.
