A child in Siberia has lost life after an outbreak of naturally occurring anthrax. The outbreak has been associated with a decades-old reindeer carcass exposed at the time of a heatwave.

According to Russian officials, the death of 12-year-old boy has been the first life loss in Siberia associated with the pathogen since 1941. The boy was a member of a reindeer-herding family from the Yamal tundra, located at 1,300 miles north of Moscow. As per CBS, 20 others have been diagnosed with anthrax.

Dmitry Kobylkin, governor of the region, has linked the outbreak to temperature increase in the area that caused the meltdown of the permafrost, a thick layer composed of soil and organic matter frozen the entire year on the Earth’s coldest regions. Unexpectedly, hot weather has caused temperature to surge near 95 degrees Fahrenheit for over 30 days in areas of the tundra.

While speaking to Agency France-Presse, Kobylkin said, “I have no words to express my feelings. The infection showed its cunning. Returning after 75 years, it took away a child’s life”.

In late June, officials started investigating the outbreak after reindeer started dying en masse. Later, the anthrax outbreak was connected with the meltdown of a 75-year-old carcass with the permafrost, emitting dormant bacteria spores due to which other animals contracted infection.

As per the Siberian Times, over 2,300 reindeer have lost their lives to the pathogen since the beginning of the outbreak. The herd’s healthy animals, numbering over 200,000, have received vaccination. The government said it would spend $1.3 million to help the region’s nomads infected by the outbreak.

Anthrax isn’t infectious and spreads in humans via spores in the atmosphere, food and drink and through uncovered wounds. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it can be easily treated using antibiotics.

According to a report in Live Science by Stephanie Pappas, "It's an event of the sort many scientists have warned about: Warming temperatures reviving dormant diseases, perhaps even pathogens long-thought extinct. There are, however, ways to protect both livestock and humans from an anthrax infection, and the current outbreak is likely to end quickly, said George Stewart, a medical bacteriologist at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine."

The anthrax currently infecting reindeer and people in western Siberia likely came from the carcass of a reindeer that died in an anthrax outbreak 75 years ago and has been frozen ever since — until an unusually warm summer thawed permafrost across the region this year, according to local officials.

Because anthrax is so hardy, it's no surprise that it could survive in permafrost. Researchers warned in 2011 in the journal Global Health Action that outbreaks such as this one could become common as the remains of livestock killed in earlier outbreaks thaw. There are also fears that other pathogens may lurk in the frozen soil of Siberia.

A report published in Outbreak News Today revealed, "The medical history of the world is full of deadly diseases which have been destructive for the people and which have humiliated the whole mankind. Some of them have been defeated but some of them have been only limited and put into the deep winter sleep."

According to media all over, the newest outbreak worth of the deepest thoughts is definitely the one which includes almost forgotten ANTHRAX DISEASE. The vast majority of the people react the similar way on this bacillus name, relating it to the controversial bio terroristic attack back in 2001 and linking it with the weapons of mass destruction and bio warfare program.

The fact is that the global warm temperatures hit also the Yamal peninsula to the north of the Urals and Yamal tundra. This tundra is located above the Arctic Circle has paid a price of dealing with the hot wave up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to the average of 77 degrees. The unexpected warm temperatures which have visited this part of Siberia also have opened the book of horror for the epidemic situation.