BARNAUL, August 26 (Itar-Tass) —— An anthrax outbreak in the Altai territory has been confined, Altai Vice-Governor Daniil Bessarabov said on Sunday.
The authorities have done the utmost to prevent the spread of the infection, he said. “Comprehensive measures are being taken. Doctors are checking local residents for possible anthrax symptoms. We have sufficient medical personnel and drug stock,” he said. “The governor personally controls the situation. We held a meeting of the sanitary-epidemiological commission today. Vice-Governor Alexander Lukyanov, who is supervising agriculture, is working in the infection spot.”
According to the regional emergency situations department, a laboratory has confirmed the anthrax diagnosis only for two residents of Druzhba, Altai territory.
Earlier the department reported hospitalization of six persons on anthrax suspicions. One of the cases was lethal. “Health of all the Druzhba residents is being monitored,” the department said. The village was put under quarantine, and measures were taken to confine the possible spread of the infection.
“The men contracted the disease from an animal. It cannot be passed from one person to another. The first patient turned to a doctor only a week after he had fallen ill. Doctors could not save him,” the territorial administration said.
Traffic to and from the village is limited, and police are guarding its perimeters. “Druzhba villagers have been examined by medics, persons who had contacts with the patients were identified and prescribed drugs, and the barn where the sick animals had been was disinfected,” the emergency situations department said. There will be a new medical checkup of the villagers on Sunday, cattle and other domestic animals will be inoculated, and stray animals will be killed.
Anthrax is a dangerous infectious disease of farm and wild animals, as well as of humans, which may have cutaneous and septic forms.