Anthrax outbreak kills three and leaves 93 ill after people ate infected meat

Three people have died from anthrax, with another 93 left sick with the disease, after eating infected meat in Indonesia.

Health officials confirmed the outbreak happened in Gunung Kidul district, Yogyakarta, which lies in the south of the country’s most populated island, Java.

Anthrax is a serious infectious illness caused by the microbe Bacillus anthracis, which occurs naturally in soil and can affect domestic and wild animals, who can then transmit the disease to humans.

It can take up to two months for symptoms to appear and, depending on the type of infection, can include fever, skin ulcers and blisters, breathing difficulties, stomach aches and nausea.

If not treated early enough, anthrax can cause severe illness and death.

Dewi Irawati, the head of the Gunung Kidul Regency health agency, said when they received news that a 73-year-old man had died in hospital of suspected anthrax, they immediately launched an investigation, The Telegraph reports.

‘We found that the patient also distributed the meat to dozens of other residents in his neighbourhood. Thus, we did blood tests on 125 residents and found 85 of them infected,’ Ms Irawati said.

Many of the residents had developed symptoms like diarrhoea, sores on the skin and rashes, but were being treated with antibiotics.

The number of infections has since risen to 93, according to local media reports.

Anthrax can also be contracted through skin contact and inhalation and became widely known in 2001 when it was used as a biological weapon in the US.

Powdered anthrax spores were sent via letters in mail leading to five deaths and 17 illnesses.

Meanwhile, between 2009 and 2010 there was an outbreak among drug users in Scotland that killed 14 people and left 119 infected, the BBC reported.

A Health Protection Scotland (HPS) report said it it was ‘the first documented outbreak associated with heroin use anywhere in the world’.

It concluded that the anthrax came from ‘contaminated heroin imported to Scotland’.

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