Sverdlovsk anthrax leak

Rare card · No. 56559

On 2 April 1979, an accidental release of spores of Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax) is reported to have started an outbreak of the disease which resulted in the deaths of at least 68 people. Soviet authorities contemporaneously maintained that the illness was due to consumption of tainted meat in the area, with butchers' subcutaneous exposure being indicative of a tainted meat origin. The purported accident became the earliest chronological event cited in the Western world as evidence of the Soviet Union hosting a programme aimed at the production of biological weapons.

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