• Symptoms: fever, loss of appetite, vomiting followed by abdominal pains, severe diarrhoea and vomiting blood
  
• Spread: direct contact with virus spores. Direct person-to-person infection unlikely
  
• Treatment: antibiotics
  
  

Smallpox
Symptoms: rash, boils in mouth spreading to face and rest of body
Spread: via saliva and coughing
Treatment: no known treatment, but if vaccine is administered within four days, the virus can be less damaging

Bubonic plague

• Symptoms: fever, flu-like symptoms, seizures, boils on body
  
• Spread: via saliva and coughing
  
• Treatment: antibiotics and intravenous fluids

   

  Botulism
  
• Symptoms: blurred double vision, dry mouth, nausea, vomiting, muscle weakness leading to paralysis of limbs
  
• Spread: via wounds on the skin, or through contaminated food supplies
  
• Treatment: antitoxin
  

• Symptoms: muscles contract, causing respiratory failure and paralysis
  
• Spread: direct contact with substance, though liquids, foods or aerosol spray
  
• Treatment: immediate decontamination and antidote injection
  

Choking agents (e.g. chlorine, phosgene)
Symptoms: may not develop for several hours. Starts with coughing and choking, as lungs swell, eventually causing suffocation
Spread: direct contact with substance
Treatment: immediate decontamination and antidote injection

Blistering agents (e.g. lewsite gas, mustard gas)

• Symptoms: skin blisters and burns
  
• Spread: direct contact with substance
  
• Treatment: immediate decontamination, followed by antibiotics. In severe cases, plastic surgery can be carried out after wounds have healed
  

   

  What can we do to protect ourselves?