Age as a Risk Factor for Cutaneous Human Anthrax: Evidence from Haiti, 1973–1974

To the Editor: Few cases of anthrax have been reported in children, in part because most exposures to Bacillus anthracis occur in workplace settings. Questions about the susceptibility of children to B. anthracis infection were raised when cutaneous anthrax developed in a 7-month-old child in New York City in 2001 after he was taken to visit his mother’s workplace (1). No cases of anthrax were reported in persons <24 years of age in the 1979 inhalational anthrax outbreak in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk, despite a presumed general population exposure (2). Such reports have led some investigators to postulate that young persons may be less susceptible to anthrax than older persons.