Fig 5. Epidemic curve showing patterns of epidemic spread for weekly anthrax cases in Hippopotamus.

This outbreak occurred in clustered waves (epidemic generations), lasted 42 weeks from 25 July 2004 to May 2005 and died after 3 generations. Clusters that spanned over 20 days were considered protracted single outbreaks beyond anthrax incubation period or multiple outbreaks (Tables 2 and 3). Dashed line shows time in week 9 of outbreak when management intervention for carcass disposal was initiated. Number of cases did not drastically decline but epidemic peaks in the second and third epidemic generations dropped below the peak in the first wave instead of becoming successively larger.