SARATOV, April 20. /TASS/. There are no risks of mass anthrax infections in Russia and no new cases of anthrax have been detected, Head of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing Anna Popova told reporters on Thursday.
"No," she said during a working visit to Saratov replying to a question as to whether any new cases of anthrax have been detected in the country.
According to the top sanitary doctor, isolated anthrax cases occur in all countries. "Since this microbe is present in the soil practically worldwide and in the Russian Federation, then encountering it, unfortunately, leads to an infection. <…> There haven’t been any risks of mass infection in the Russian Federation, we are controlling all the known hotspots," she noted.
As reported earlier, some cases of anthrax were detected in March in the village of Staroye Aktashevo in the Chuvash Republic. On April 14, local authorities lifted the quarantine introduced there since March 16. Two patients who had been hospitalized with anthrax at a local hospital have been discharged. According to their doctors, they are completely healthy.