Tuesday, January 11, 2011

More Anthrax: State of Emergency Declared on a Farm in Russia

****NOTE: Anthrax is NOT a human virus. It is an infectious disease caused by Bacillus anthracis, a BACTERIA.  But, the article is interesting nonetheless. Enjoy!




Laboratory tests on meat samples from one slaughtered cow on a farm in Russia confirmed the presence of anthrax.  This confirmation has launched a regional state of emergency in the republic of Kalmykia in Southern Russia.   Twelve contact people are in the hospital.


The current containment strategy is vaccination: 512 head of livestock, 256 head of small cattle, 21 horses and 64 pigs have been vaccinated.


The region is particularly sensitive to this viral outbreak because there was a similar outbreak during the fall of 2010.  That outbreak resulted in 3 anthrax confirmed bovine illnesses, and 8 people were admitted to the hospital, however none of the human cases were confirmed by laboratory test results.


ProMed article: http://promedmail.oracle.com/pls/otn/pm?an=20110109.0109


RIA Novosti news article: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110102/162024744.html


-Lauren Platt

1 comment:

  1. It's so interesting to read about places with endemic anthrax because I feel like (from a USA-centric point of view) the first time I ever heard of anthrax was when we feared it might be used as a form of bioterrorism. It seems to be happening in lots of places in Asia recently (according to the 50 e-mails a day that ProMed keeps sending :) )!-Autumn

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