Disease	Causative agent	Clinical features	Ancillary findings or diagnostic clue	Diagnosis	Treatment	Duration of treatment	Prophylaxis after exposure
Anthrax	Bacillus anthracis	Fever, malaise, cough, acute respiratory distress syndrome, shock	Widened mediastinum on chest radiograph	Gram stain of unspunperipheral blood, blood culture	Ciprofloxacin (Cipro) or other fluoroquinolone, doxycycline (Vibramycin), or penicillin (if susceptible)	60 days	Ciprofloxacin, amoxicillin, or doxycycline for 60 days
Plague	Yersinia pestis	High fever, malaise, cough, bloody sputum, shock	Blood-tinged sputum within 24 hours of onset	Gram-negative bipolar coccobacillus on Gram stain and culture of blood, sputum, cerebrospinal fluid	Doxycycline or fluoroquinolone	10 days	Doxycycline or fluoroquinolone for 7 days
Tularemia	Francisella tularensis	Fever, prostration, cough	Chestradiograph shows focal infiltrate, hilar adenopathy	Culture of blood, sputum, pharyngeal specimen (high risk to laboratory personnel)	Doxycycline	14 days	Doxycycline or tetracycline for 14 days
Q Fever	Coxiella burnetii	Fever, cough, shortness of breath, weight loss, chest pain	Minimally productive cough, vague substernal chest pain or tightness	Blood culture, PCR, serology	Doxycycline, tetracycline	5 to 7 days	Tetracycline or doxycycline for five days starting on day 8 to 12
Brucellosis	Brucella species	Fever, myalgias, cough	Undulating fever, bone-associated osteoarticular symptoms	Blood culture, marrow culture, immunoassay, PCR (high risk to laboratory personnel)	Doxycycline plus rifampin(Rifadin) or streptomycin	6 weeks	None recommended