It sounds like the plot of an infectious disease thriller: on the arid plains of Siberia, a dinner party eats horse meat, which secretly contains a rare and deadly bacterium. Once guests show signs of infection, they’re taken to hospital, but some are abandoning their beds – panicking local officials and sending out an alarm.
It reportedly happened in Tuva, a republic in Russia’s south Siberian region, in late June, and the bacterium that has made everyone sick is anthrax, according to TASS, a Russian state news agency.
Russian state media is known for publishing fake news and propaganda, but it’s unclear what benefit the authorities would gain by spreading this story of a botched public health threat. And cases of anthrax have been independently recorded in Russia’s hinterland, such as a 2016 outbreak on the undisclosed Yamal Peninsula in northern Siberia that sickened scores and killed a child, according to an NPR report at the time.
Perhaps most pertinently, researchers have said that 2016-like anthrax outbreaks will become more frequent due to rapidly rising temperatures in Siberia due to climate change. Scientists theorize that increased temperatures are thawing the permafrost, freeing all sorts of deadly bacteria and viruses from their icy prisons.
According to TASS, this latest anthrax incident occurred in a town called Bizhiktig-Khaya, where there is a “herder camp where over 100 unvaccinated animals were being held.” On June 30, a local resident was hospitalized for anthrax after visiting the settlement where horse meat was believed to be consumed, and four other people were also infected.
The patients were supposed to stay in the hospital until they no longer showed signs of infection, but apparently four patients were able to leave the hospital.
TASS reported that the patients were in “satisfactory condition” but should not have been discharged until “all manifestations of the disease on the skin have healed.”
More about diseases: Climate change is freeing old infectious diseases from their icy prisons