Anthrax has spread to Russia for the first time this year and the cholera epidemic has spread to a third region, newspapers and news agencies reported Tuesday.


Three people were hospitalized with anthrax and another seven are likely carriers of the virus in Tuva, a Russian republic on the border with Mongolia, Interfax reported. The people caught the disease by eating contaminated beef, and the source of the disease has been localized. This is the first time in 20 years that people have caught the disease in Tuva, Interfax said, but there have been three outbreaks of anthrax in Ukraine this year.


Izvestia reported Tuesday that 18 people had fallen ill in a second flare-up of anthrax in a village in Crimea. Health officials were still trying to trace infected beef, the paper said.


One farmer died in separate outbreak, in northwestern Ukraine, earlier this month. At least one hundred people fell ill with anthrax in Russia, Georgia and Kazakhstan last year.


Anthrax, a hemorrhagic disease characterized by black pustules and severe nausea, thrives in hot weather and is spread most often through livestock grazing in areas where soil has been contaminated by buried animals.


Izvestia cited health officials in Kalmykia, a Russian republic in southern Russia, as saying that three people have come down with cholera and two more were infected.


The disease was brought in by farm workers from neighboring Dagestan, where at least 619 people have fallen ill.