Russia steps up checks after anthrax cases prompt quarantine in central Kazakhstan

Russia’s health watchdog said on Friday it is monitoring an anthrax outbreak in Kazakhstan’s Akmola region, where two villages were quarantined after infections in cattle and local residents.

The consumer-protection agency Rospotrebnadzor announced it had tightened sanitary and quarantine controls at all Russian border-crossing points, although the affected area lies hundreds of kilometres from the frontier and officials said the risk of the disease spreading to Russia was “excluded.”

Kazakhstan’s sanitary-epidemiological service reported that 10 individual cattle fell sick and an unspecified number of people contracted anthrax after handling the animals. Contaminated carcasses and meat products have been seized and destroyed, and veterinary teams are vaccinating livestock in surrounding districts.

Anthrax is a bacterial infection that can be fatal if untreated; global mortality in untreated cutaneous cases is estimated at up to 20 %, according to the World Health Organization. Outbreaks remain sporadic across the steppe, where old burial pits and unvaccinated herds pose recurring hazards.

Russia last imposed similar precautions in 2021, when cases were confirmed in Siberia’s Yamal region.

The latest measures, officials said, are purely preventive and will remain until Kazakh authorities declare the outbreak contained.

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