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Preparation of potential anthrax powder sample

The sample that's under suspicion of being artificially contaminated must be handled in a biological safety cabinet (BSC), preferably a Class III cabinet. A deliberately contaminated environmental sample is potentially very dangerous, and processing suspect environmental samples should be restricted to a BSL-3 facility.

First step in the workflow presents white envelope with black skull symbol on it and has the description “Powder sample”. Second step shows the same envelope with a long orange stick with a cotton sphere at the end of it, the image has the description “Take a small amount of powder sample”. Third step shows a plastic 15 milliliter tube with solution in it, and a cotton swab next to it, and it has the description “Emulsify the powder sample in buffered saline”. Last step presents the same tube, and has the description “Emulsified powder sample”.

Figure 1 Powder sample preparation. In BSC, transfer a sample of the powder using a sterile dry swab into 0.5 mL of buffered saline.