Anthrax outbreak update in Yamal.

A blame game has begun on the outbreak of anthrax on the Yamal peninsula, with a senior veterinary watchdog official alleging a huge delay in informing the public and government officials of the lethal disease. With 23 people now infected, and one dead, even health minister Veronika Skvortsova is on antibiotics after visiting patients in Salekhard, it was revealed. She is taking the medicine as a precaution because she had not been vaccinated. The main theory as to the cause of the outbreak is that a zombie infection, inactive for 75 years or more in the buried corpse of a human or a reindeer, 'awoke' in the recent Arctic heat wave. But now the deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor Nikolay Vlasov claimed the infection was first spotted five weeks before proper warnings were given. He is demanding the total vaccination of the human and cattle populations to stop the threat of spread.The senior official from the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance criticized the 'delay in diagnosis' for preventing the outbreak of anthrax. 'YANAO (Yamal) is not the poorest region. But the veterinary service is bad, very weak,' he said. 'Veterinarians learned about the outbreak of epizootic anthrax five weeks after it began. Herders were without reliable communications.'One of them had to walk for four days across the tundra to inform about the accident.' At least six of the infected people, among them children, have contracted the virulent intestinal form of the infection which has already killed a 12 year old boy. They were contaminated after eating infected meat, say specialists. In all, 90 people - including 54 children - are in hospital. 23 of these have contracted anthrax.continue