It usually starts with one; one dead animal, one sick individual, one case that a doctor thinks is unusual. These are all ways that a new disease makes its presence known. In the case of Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis, it started with a dead chimpanzee (1).  

The wild western chimpanzee was found dead in Côte d’Ivoire in 2001. An investigation led by scientists from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin identified the pathogenic cause of death to be an atypical B. cereus isolate that caused an anthrax-like disease. Continue reading “The Birth of a Disease? A New Anthrax-Like Disease Found in Sub-Saharan Africa”