A shipment of an anthrax vaccine for cattle that is believed to have sunk in a Siberian river remains missing, stoking fears of contamination in a local village.
Consumer safety agency Rospotrebnadzor has switched to monitoring hospitals and livestock in the region of Sakha, also known as Yakutia, after "maximum search efforts" have yielded no results in trying to locate a boat with the vaccine cargo that went down in the Aldan River early this month, said Izabella Samoilova, deputy chief of the agency's regional branch, Interfax reported.
"There are two possibilities now: The cargo has drifted away or somebody has found it," Samoilova was quoted as saying. "The second option is more dangerous because opening the ampules by oneself … can lead to various ailments."
The agency has also warned residents of the Tommot village, near which the boat sank, to keep their children away from the Aldan River and drink only boiled water.
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