Biosecurity Threat Posed by Botulinum Toxin
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Biowarfare, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes
3. BoNT as a Weapon
3.1. BoNT as an Injectable Preparation
3.2. Food and Beverage Contamination with BoNT
3.3. Airborne Release of BoNT
4. Indicators of an Intentional Release of BoNT
- (1)
- An unusual distribution or clustering of the cases (e.g., several patients who attended the same event or that visited the same place (e.g., an airport or a subway station) at the same time, but who did not eat the same food).
- (2)
- A large number of cases associated with the consumption of industrially prepared food. As naturally occurring botulism is mostly associated with home-made food, an outbreak linked to commercial food could point to the intentional release of BoNT.
- (3)
- An outbreak associated with an uncommon BoNT type.
- (4)
- Several outbreaks that do not have immediately identifiable common food or geographical point sources.
5. Discussion and Conclusions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Clinical Form | Source of Contamination | Incubation Period from Contamination to onset of Symptoms |
---|---|---|
Foodborne botulism | Mainly caused by the ingestion of home-preserved food containing BoNT, more rarely by the ingestion of a mixture of BoNT, vegetative cells and spores | 4 h to 10 days (typically 8–36 h) [6] |
Infant botulism | Caused by the ingestion of spores in infants of 1 week to 12 months of age (typically 1 to 6 months of age) | 3 to 30 days [7] |
Intestinal botulism | Caused by the ingestion of spores in children older than 12 months of age and in adults [8,9] | Unknown |
Wound botulism | Caused by spores that germinate in a wound; quite often associated with drugs injections which cause skin disruption and provide an environment for the production of BoNT [10] | 7 to 14 days [11,12] |
Iatrogenic botulism | Caused by the injection of commercial or non-approved BoNT preparations [13] | Unknown |
Inhalational botulism | Caused by the inhalation of BoNT; the toxin enters the circulatory system through mucosal membranes. This is not a natural route of exposure, and it has been described only as an accidental laboratory exposure [4] | 24–36 h to several days [14,15] |
Route | LD50 |
---|---|
Intravenous/intramuscular | 0.09–0.15 µg |
Inhalation | 0.70–0.90 µg |
Ingestion | 70 µg |
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Cenciarelli, O.; Riley, P.W.; Baka, A. Biosecurity Threat Posed by Botulinum Toxin. Toxins 2019, 11, 681. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins11120681
Cenciarelli O, Riley PW, Baka A. Biosecurity Threat Posed by Botulinum Toxin. Toxins. 2019; 11(12):681. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins11120681
Chicago/Turabian StyleCenciarelli, Orlando, Paul William Riley, and Agoritsa Baka. 2019. "Biosecurity Threat Posed by Botulinum Toxin" Toxins 11, no. 12: 681. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins11120681