Antibiotics are used to treat all three types of anthrax. Early identification and treatment are important.

Treatment after infection. Treatment is usually a 60-day course of antibiotics. If you give anthrax spores the right environment, such as the human body, they can grow into the harmful form of the bacteria that can cause anthrax disease. It takes anthrax spores an average of 7 days to grow into the harmful form of the bacteria, but it can take longer. For this reason, you must continue taking preventive antibiotics for the full 60 days.Success depends on the type of anthrax and how soon treatment begins.

Why can't I take a shot, wear a patch, or take one large dose of the medicine instead of taking it for 60 days?
Spores can stay in the body for some time before they start growing and causing symptoms. When the spores are not growing, antibiotics are not effective. 

Only after the spores start to grow can the antibiotics work. Therefore, a constant level of antibiotics have to be in the body for 60 days to make sure that when the spores start to grow, the antibiotic is there to kill them.Can a screening test be done to find out whether an individual has been exposed to anthrax? There is no screening test for anthrax; there is no test that a doctor can do that says that an individual has been exposed to or carry it.

Can Anthrax be prevented ?
Vaccination is an option to prevent anthrax, but it is not yet available for the general public.

How does the anthrax vaccine work?
Anthrax vaccine works the same way as tetanus toxoid, rabies vaccine, and other vaccines that save millions of lives. Like other vaccines, anthrax vaccine causes the body to make protective antibodies. Antibodies protect by circulating in the blood stream and hunting down anthrax germs.

The vaccine helps the body train to defend itself, by making antibodies ahead of time. To make these antibodies, vaccines have to contain parts of the bacteria (germ). Anthrax vaccine makes the body produce antibodies to the protective antigen, so the bacteria can't produce the anthrax disease. Anthrax vaccine protects against the protein common to all harmful strains of anthrax bacteria.

Is Anthrax vaccine 100% effective?
After an anthrax attack, antibiotics would be given to increase survival even further. Antibiotics plus vaccination would be given to get survival as close to 100% as possible.

What are the side effects of the vaccine ?

Some common signs noted at the injection site after anthrax vaccination:

Redness
Swelling
Pain
Burning
Itching

Serious adverse events are rare and occur in about 1 in 100,000 vaccinations.