Caprivi is Now Anthrax Free

The Namibian (Windhoek)

February 3, 2005
Posted to the web February 3, 2005

Absalom Shigwedha
Windhoek

NO new cases of anthrax among people or animals have been reported since November last year, a senior official in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism said this week.

"The situation is now completely calm," Sacky Namugongo, the Ministry's deputy director of parks and wildlife management, told The Namibian.

He said anthrax mainly occurs during dry seasons, and the area has now received plentiful rain.

An anthrax outbreak killed a number of wild animals in eastern Caprivi in September last year.

Five people were admitted to the Katima Mulilo state hospital after contracting skin anthrax from infected animal carcasses.

The disease was believed to have spread from Botswana's Chobe National Park, were it killed 95 buffaloes and six elephants.

On Sunday, the French news agency AFP reported that anthrax had claimed the lives of 20 hippos in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park in the past two weeks.

But Anthrax will never go away. Aren't kudu a frequent source of this, a reservoir in the wild? And the spores stay viable for decades in the earth, etc.

Anthrax-free? No, just down to the usual dull roar.

Far as I know it is always present in the soil. Environmental conditions must be right for it to become active.