Brucellosis, also called Malta Fever or Undulant Fever, is an infectious disease primarily passed between animals such as sheep, goats, cattle, deer, elk, pigs, dogs and some others. Humans can be infected, too, by coming into contact with affected animals or animal products. Infected humans experience a range of symptoms similar to the flu, including fever, sweats, headaches, back pains and physical weakness.
A spokesman for the local veterinary and phytosanitary department of the country's agricultural watchdog said the brucellosis-infected sheep were brought to the Samara Region from the Orenburg Region, which borders on Kazakhstan.
Farmers in the Orenburg Region discovered that their sheep were infected and sold them cheaply to farmers in the Samara Region.
"After over 30 sheep died, veterinarians diagnosed brucellosis," the spokesman said, adding that a quarantine law was violated and a criminal case could be launched as a result.
Since humans can be also infected with the disease, eight people who were in direct contact with the sheep were quarantined.
Experts said it would take a month to determine whether the spread of brucellosis has been averted in the Samara Region, which has a population of about 3.2 million people.
