[Workers compensation, topics in] In 1919, the year of its creation, the International Labour Organization (ILO) declared that anthrax was an occupational disease.
[Agriculture & natural resources: Plantations] On some plantations, draught animals are used for dragging or carrying loads. These animals include horses, donkeys, mules and oxen. These types of animals have injured workers by kicking or biting. They also potentially expose workers to zoonotic diseases including anthrax, brucellosis, rabies, Q-fever or tularaemia. Animals should be well trained, and those that exhibit dangerous behaviour should not be used for work. Bridles, harnesses, saddles and so on should be used and maintained in good condition and be properly adjusted. Diseased animals should be identified and treated or disposed of.
[Emergency & security services: Armed forces] Military personnel face injury and illness from a variety of weapons. The more conventional weapons produce casualties using projectiles and fragments, blast effects (which may result in lung contusion trauma) and flame and incendiary devices, such as those containing napalm and phosphorus. Eye injuries from lasers may occur accidentally or when lasers are used as offensive weapons. Other weapons systems employ biological material, such as anthrax spores, or chemicals like anticholinesterase agents.
[Entertainment and the arts: Fibre & textile crafts] Animal products used by fibre artists such as wool, hair, hides and feathers may be contaminated with bacteria, moulds, lice or mites that are capable of causing “Q” fever, mange, respiratory symptoms, skin rashes, anthrax, allergies and so on, if they are not treated or fumigated before use. Fatal cases of inhalation anthrax have occurred in craft weavers, including the 1976 death of a California weaver.
[Food Industry: Food industry processes] Infections and infectious or parasitic diseases spread by animals or the waste products of animals used in manufacture are common occupational problems in the food industry. These zoonoses include anthrax, brucellosis, the leptospiroses, tularemia, bovine tuberculosis, glanders, erysipeloid, Q fever, foot-and-mouth disease, rabies and so on. Some food handlers may be subject to a wide variety of skin infections, including anthrax, actinomycosis and erysipeloid. Certain dried fruits are infested with mites; this can affect workers in sorting operations.
[Food industry: Oil & fat] Rendering of animals to produce animal fats and animal feed can also involve biological hazards. Although most animals and animal materials used as a source for rendering are healthy or from healthy animals, a small percentage comes from animals that have been road-killed or have died of unknown causes and perhaps are diseased. Some animal diseases, such as anthrax and brucellosis, can also affect humans. Workers in slaughterhouses and rendering plants may be at risk. In the United Kingdom, people called knackers make their living going around the countryside picking up dead animals and rendering them in their backyards. They could be at greater risk because of the greater likelihood of their exposure to diseased animals and the crude conditions they work under.
[Hunting: Diseases associated with hunting and trapping] Anthrax is another bacterial disease that may infect trappers and hunters, since it is endemic in both wild and domesticated animals in most parts of the world. A skin infection from contact with contaminated skins and hides is the most frequent form of anthrax; however, people are also infected by eating contaminated meat. Disease caused by inhalation is less common. Treatment should be sought at once.
[Institutions, structures & law: the United Nations & Speciaized Agencies] A number of activities of FAO are directly or indirectly concerned with occupational safety and health and ergonomics in agricultural, forestry and fishery work.... In the agricultural field some of the diseases of economic importance in livestock also present hazards to persons handling livestock and animal products (e.g., brucellosis, tuberculosis, leptospirosis, anthrax, rabies, Rift Valley fever). For these disease-related activities, close liaison is maintained with WHO through joint committees.
[Leather. fur & footwear: Fur industry] The use by the fur industry of such a large proportion of pelts from animals bred in captivity has considerably reduced the likelihood of transmission of animal diseases to fur workers. Nevertheless, anthrax may occur in workers handling carcasses, skins, hides or hairs from infected animals; a vaccine may be administered to all likely to have contact. All concerned should be aware of the risk and trained to report any suspicious symptoms immediately.
[Livestock rearing: Livestock rearing] Animals may carry disease that can infect other animals or humans, and countries have established quarantine services to control the spread of these zoonotic diseases. Among these diseases are scrapie, brucellosis, Q-fever and anthrax. Livestock and food inspection and quarantines have emerged as methods to control disease importation.
[Livestock rearing: cattle, sheep & goats] Common zoonoses include rabies, brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis, trichinosis, salmonella, leptospirosis, ringworm, tapeworm, orf virus disease, Q fever and spotted fever. Diseases that may be contracted while working with hair and fleece include tetanus, salmonellosis from tagging and crutching, leptospirosis, anthrax and parasitic diseases.
[Livestock rearing: Pet, furbearer & laboratory animal production] All types of zoonotic agents occur within pet, furbearer and laboratory animals, including viruses, bacteria, fungi and internal and external parasites. Some examples of zoonoses include: giardiasis and campylobacterosis from pets; anthrax, tularaemia and ringworm from furbearers; and lymphocytic choriomeningitis, hantavirus and dwarf tapeworm infestation from the laboratory rodent. The distribution of zoonotic agents varies widely according to host animal
species, location and isolation from other disease reservoirs, housing and husbandry methods,
and history and intensity of veterinary care. For example, some of the commercially produced
laboratory animal populations have undergone extensive disease eradication programmes and
been maintained subsequently under strict quality control conditions precluding the reintroduction of diseases. However, comparable measures have not been applicable universally
in the various settings for pet, furbearer and laboratory animal maintenance and production,
enabling the persistence of zoonoses in some circumstances.
[Personal & community services: Funeral services] Inhalation exposure occurs only when disease-causing organisms become airborne. For funeral workers the two primary ways that pathogens can become airborne are during an exhumation or during autopsy procedures in which a saw is used to cut through bone. A third possibility of aerosolizing a pathogen - tuberculosis, for example - is when air is forced out of the lungs of a corpse during handling. Although the epidemics of the past have included plague, cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, anthrax and smallpox, only the organisms causing anthrax and smallpox appear capable of surviving any length of time after burial (Healing, Hoffman and Young 1995). These pathogens would be found in any of the soft tissues, not the bones, and particularly in soft tissues that have become mummified and/or dried out and friable. The anthrax bacterium can form spores that remain viable for long periods, especially under dry conditions. Intact smallpox viruses taken from the tissues of bodies buried in the 1850s were identified under the electron microscope. None of the viruses grew in tissue culture and they were deemed to be
non-infective (Baxter, Brazier and Young 1988). Smallpox virus has remained infective, however, after 13 years in dry storage under laboratory conditions (Wolff and Croon 1968). An article appearing in the Journal of Public Health (UK) during the 1850s reports concern about smallpox infectivity from remains buried two hundred years earlier in Montreal, when smallpox was widespread in the New World (Sly 1994).
Modified by AS, approved by EC. Last modification: 5.11.2001.
