World Health: Nomadic Boy Dies In Russian Anthrax Outbreak

A 12-year-old nomadic boy has died in what is the first fatal anthrax outbreak reported in Russia in 75 years.

The boy, who was being treated in hospital, died in the Yamalo-Nenets region of Siberia, to where hundreds of nomadic reindeer herders had been evacuated because of the epidemic.

The outbreak is thought to have started last month when the corpse of an anthrax-infected reindeer which died decades ago thawed out because of the unusually high temperatures.

The reindeer's remains were eaten by living reindeer which, weakened by the heat, were susceptible to the virus and subsequently transmitted it to local herders. 

According to reports in the Moscow Times, the boy's grandmother died last week after eating reindeer meat.

State governor Dmitry Kobylkin said: "The infection has shown its guile. Returning after 75 years it has taken the life of a child."

Twenty more people have been diagnosed with the bacterial disease and are being treated in the regional capital, Salekhard.

The remote region is some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) north east of Moscow.

More than 2,300 reindeer have died as a result of the outbreak.

The governor said all the reindeer in the area had now been vaccinated and the deaths had stopped.

Anthrax in humans is rare - the disease largely disappeared after a vaccine was successfully developed in the middle of the last century.

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