Letter to the Editor: The behaviour of virulent Bacillus anthracis strain AO843 in rabbits

The European Pharmacopoeia specifies the requirement that anthrax vaccine for veterinary use must be tested in laboratory animals suggesting the use of the most simple model (European Pharmacopoeia 4th edition, 2001). Mice appear to be highly susceptible to replicating fully virulent anthrax bacilli while somewhat resistant to the anthrax toxin (Hudson et al., in press Hudson, M.J., Beyer, W., Böhm, R., Fasanella, A., Garofolo, G., Golinski, R., Goossens, P.L., Hahn, U., Hallis, B., King, A., Mock, M., Montecucco, C., Ozin, A., Tonello, F., Kaufmann, S.H.M.J., in press. Bacillus anthracis: balancing innocent research with dual-use potential. Int. J. Med. Microbiol.Hudson et al., in press). Rabbits are susceptible to infection by virulent Bacillus anthracis (Grabenstein, 2008) while they are resistant to Sterne (pX01+/pX02?) and to Carbosap (pX01+/pX02+) attenuated vaccine strains. In contrast, mice and guinea pigs are susceptible to the Carbosap vaccine strain (Fasanella et al., 2001).