An Epidemiologic Study of Human Anthrax in Counties under the Supervision of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences During 2012-2015

Anthrax is a zoonotic disease affecting both humans and animals, and its study is extremely important due to its application in military and bioterrorism and creation of economic and health problems. This disease is a health problem in developing countries.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the 4 -year trend of the anthrax disease during 2012-2015 in the counties under the supervision of the Isfahan province.
In this descriptive-longitudinal study with total count sampling, the data of all diagnosed anthrax cases were collected from Isfahan Province during 2012-2015 according to the report of governmental and non-governmental departments, and then were analyzed using the SPSS 19 software.
A total of 117 patients with anthrax were studied during the study years and the highest prevalence of this disease belonged to 2014 with a prevalence of 1.09 in one hundred thousand patients. Fifty-three percent of the patients were males and 58.9% were resident in the village. Semirom County with 18.8% of the patients, Feridan County with 17.94%, and Fereydun shahr and Buin and Miandasht Counties each with 17.94% had the highest prevalence of the disease in the province. Also, 54.7% of the patients had caught this disease during the summer.
Discussion and An epidemiologic study can affect the managers and authorities’ decisions regarding purposive planning. Since the largest population of these patients lives in rural areas, we should attract the public participation and inter-sectoral collaboration in order to control and prevent anthrax and we should also emphasize on the role of health workers and health centers in controlling the disease.