HEALTH officials investigating the death of a Scot who contracted anthrax believe he may have come into contact with the deadly bacteria when playing drums made in west Africa.
Christopher Norris, 50, an artist from Stobs, near Hawick in the Borders, became the first person in Britain to die from anthrax in more than 30 years when he succumbed to the disease last month.
The bacteria was identified as the cause of Norris's death by government scientists at Porton Down just over a week ago. The discovery has sparked an investigation to identify the likely source of the infection.
The Sunday Times has learnt that efforts are focusing on an African music class in Smailholm, which Norris - known to friends as Pascal - attended just four days before his death. He was learning to play traditional Malinke drum music. Some of the instruments used by the class were made with the hides of goats slaughtered in Conakry, the capital of Guinea.
Another possibility is that Norris may have contracted anthrax from a diseased badger he found on a main road between Selkirk and St Boswell. The spot is less than a mile from where the cremated remains of a cow that died from anthrax was buried on the in 1993.
Norris told friends he had taken the carcass home and used the hide to make two drums. The instruments are thought to be in his house, which has been sealed off.
"Badgers are susceptible to anthrax," said Dominic Mellor, an independent veterinary consultant for Health Protection Scotland. "If an animal dies of anthrax, if it's overwhelmed by spores, then enough of them could be present in the body to pose a significant risk to humans."
Close friends also say that Norris recently dug a 12ft-deep well in his back garden and had been pumping untreated water into his home for bathing, cooking and drinking.
Mellor says anthrax spores are extremely resilient and can survive in water, raising the possibility that the well was the source of infection.
To date, almost 60 people - most of whom attended a wake at Norris's home three weeks ago - have been tracked down and placed on emergency medication. In total, more than 90 people have been assessed by health officials in the past week.
Anthrax is last known to have killed a human in the UK in 1974, with the last Scottish fatality occurring in 1971 when a 48-year-old women died from an infection.
Yesterday, concerns were raised over why it took the authorities more than a month to diagnose anthrax. In addition, there were delays of up to four days in informing "at risk" people.
"It seems to me that to take more than four weeks to identify anthrax is very concerning," said Christine Graham, MSP for South of Scotland. "There needs to be an inquiry with a full explanation. If this could have been done quicker then somebody needs to be held responsible.
"I have issues that we don't have the facilities to deal with this in Scotland and I want to know if precautionary steps were taken at the right time, because dozens of people were put at risk. It is unforgivable that some local people had to find out about the anthrax connection through the media."
Robbie Pearson, a spokesman for NHS Borders, insisted swift action had been taken. "When we were informed that Porton Down had identified anthrax in the sample we immediately established an incident control team. Support measures were put in place in a very short space of time and our approach was entirely consistent with standard procedures."