Russian officials have said the death of a 12-year-old boy, a member of a reindeer-herding family from the Yamal tundra 1,300 miles north of Moscow, was the first fatality in Siberia linked to the pathogen since 1941. Twenty others have been diagnosed with anthrax.

Melted permafrost that exposed an infected reindeer carcass is believed to have resulted in the cases that killed a 12-year-boy and sickened eight others.

Seventy-two nomadic herders, including 41 children, were hospitalised in far north Russia after the region began experiencing abnormally high temperatures

Sixty-one thousand reindeer starved to death in the northwestern reaches of the Russian tundra in November 2013 in the largest recorded mortality event of its kind.

So far approximately 340 bison have died from an anthrax outbreak in the Fort Providence area of the N.W.T.

Bison will usually contract the disease from contaminated soil while wallowing in dust baths. Spores develop in hotter temperatures and fluctuating water levels. Cooler temperatures will kill the spores and slow the outbreak.