The Deadliest Anthrax Accident in History

One April morning in 1979, something peculiar and frightening began happening in the countryside near Sverdlovsk (now called Ekaterinburg) Oblast USSR. People were becoming ill with a mysterious illness. Their symptoms were troubling: high fever, vomiting, extreme weakness, coughing, and sometimes pulmonary hemorrhaging.

Medical personnel were alarmed at the sudden influx of patients--most victims had the same frightening symptoms, and some had been brought in after collapsing on the street. The first victim died within four days. Some victims died quickly thereafter, some lingered on the brink of life and death and died later. A few of the afflicted survived, but barely.

Panic spread quickly, fueled by the fact that no one knew, yet, what the disease was, or why it was infecting so many at once. It seemed there was no way to escape--the infection was everywhere. Someone in the area notified authorities in Moscow--something was terribly wrong in Sverdlovsk.

It took two days before the illness was diagnosed. By that time, rumors had already started and had spread as quickly as the disease. Some in the region reported hearing an explosion in the days before people fell ill. Some spoke of the military facility close by and believed the explosion came from that facility. Could the explosion be connected to the epidemic? Many in the area believed so.

Panic soared when authorities announced that anthrax was the cause of the illnesses. Health officials from across the USSR swooped down upon the area to begin a swift decontamination and vaccination program. All medical facilities in the region transported afflicted patients to a city hospital that contained an infectious disease facility. There, under the watch of the highest trained medical experts, the patients continued to die.

The Soviets gave a brief, nonspecific and evasive report about a germ outbreak to a Russian language newspaper in Germany. The report drew attention from countries across the world. U.S. intelligence looked into the situation but intelligence operatives' initial reports were sketchy.