OUTBREAK BLAMED ON DEAD REINDEER
MOSCOW • First a heat wave hit Siberia. Then came the anthrax.
Temperatures have soared in western Russia’s Yamal tundra this summer. Across Siberia, some provinces warmed an additional 4 C beyond normal. In the fields, large bubbles of vegetation appeared above the melting permafrost — strange pockets of methane or, more likely, water. Record fires blazed through Russian grassland.
In one of the more unusual symptoms of unseasonable warmth, longdormant bacteria appear to be active. For the first time since 1941, anthrax has struck western Siberia. Thirteen Yamal nomads were hospitalized, including four children, the Siberian Times reported. The bacteria took an even worse toll on wildlife, claiming some 1,500 reindeer since Sunday.
The outbreak is thought to stem from a reindeer carcass that died in the plague 75 years ago. As the old flesh thawed, the bacteria once again became active. The disease tore through the herds, prompting the relocation of dozens of the indigenous Nenet community. Herders face a quarantine that may last until September.
The governor, Dmitry Kobylkin, declared a state of emergency. On Tuesday, Kobylkin said “all measures” had been taken to isolate the area. “Now the most important thing is the safety and health of our fellow countrymen — the reindeer herders and specialists involved in the quarantine.”
Anthrax has broken out in Russia several times, including one outbreak stemming from a 1979 accident at a military facility. To the south of Yamal, anthrax may rarely appear when infection spreads from cattle; a man died from such exposure in 2012, the Siberian Times reported.
Zombie bacteria that awaken from old corpses might sound like the stuff of an X-Files episode. The premise is far from a complete fiction, however.
For one, anthrax bacteria are hardy microbe. As University of Missouri bacteriologist George Stewart told the Missourian in 2014, the organisms turn into spores in the cold. They play the long game, waiting in the soil for the temperatures to rise. Once it hits a certain threshold, they morph back into a more mobile, infectious state.
If the link between an old deer corpse and a new outbreak is confirmed, it will solidify concerns about anthrax some scientists have harboured for years. In 2011, two researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences writing in the journal Global Health Action assessed the conditions required for anthrax to appear in Yakutia, a region to the east of Yamal that contains 200 burial grounds of cattle that died from the disease.
Citing earlier work from 2007, they estimated anthrax spores remain viable in the permafrost for 105 years. Buried deeper, the bacteria may be able to hibernate for even longer.