“In the course of our check, we found out that there were violations of sanitary regulations in this household,” Larisa Boldinova, from the Prosecutor General’s Office, told RT. “Moreover, the workers in the slaughterhouse were not vaccinated against anthrax.”

The owner of the farm where the infected meat came from has already been charged with sanitary violations.

“The farm is in a very bad state – we have started disinfection,” said Gennady Onishchenko, Russia’s chief medical health officer. “And the area it is located in, Tukalinsk district in Omsk region, has a bad history of anthrax outbreaks. Since 1929, a lot of infected animals have been buried there.”

According to local media, the infected horses could have been illegally brought from Kazakhstan.

About 2.5 tons of horse meat has already been sent to a “Darina” meat factory that produces a range of products, including pelmeni and pancakes, that are sold in a number of Russian regions.

Anthrax is an acute inflectional disease transmitted to humans by an ill animal or infected wool or leather. Most forms of anthrax are lethal.