Anthrax is one of the world’s oldest known diseases. It’s a deadly bacterial infection that has stalked both animals and humans for centuries. Caused by Bacillus anthracis, it affects grazing livestock, including cows, goats and sheep. It occasionally affects people who handle or consume the infected food.
The bacteria form hardy spores that can survive in soil for decades. When they enter the human body through cuts in the skin, inhalation or ingestion, they release powerful toxins that destroy tissue and interfere with the immune system.
The most common form, cutaneous anthrax, begins as a small itchy bump before turning into a black-centred sore. Without timely treatment, the infection can spread rapidly, damaging surrounding tissue and sometimes proving fatal.
Other, rarer forms: inhalational and gastrointestinal anthrax attack the lungs or digestive system, causing fever, vomiting and severe breathing distress. Thankfully, with modern antibiotics, anthrax is treatable if diagnosed early. But in rural areas where people live closely with livestock, the disease remains a recurring threat.
That danger resurfaced recently in Gaibandha’s Sundarganj upazila, where 20 residents of Kishamat Sadar village in Belka Union developed anthrax symptoms after butchering a diseased cow on September 29. Within days, many began noticing blisters, swelling and painful sores on their hands and faces, classic signs of cutaneous anthrax.
Local health officials confirmed that all the affected were involved in cutting or distributing the meat. Several of the main butchers, Moza Mia, Mozzaffar Mia, Shafiqul Islam and Mahbur Rahman, are in serious condition, while others are recovering under treatment.
The infection has already claimed one life. On October 5, Rozia Begum, a 45-year-old woman from the same upazila, died in Rangpur Medical College Hospital after handling the meat of a sick goat. Earlier this year, Anthrax had been detected in three upazilas in Rangpur.
Teams from the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), DGHS and the Department of Livestock Services are investigating and launching mass cattle vaccination drives across Gaibandha and Rangpur.
Officials urge people not to slaughter or eat sick animals and to report unusual livestock deaths immediately. Because while anthrax no longer spreads unchecked, its spores still wait beneath the soil of Bangladesh’s farmlands silently but persistently.
