BackgroundIn Italy, anthrax is endemic but occurs sporadically. During the summer of 2004, in the Pollino National Park, Basilicata, Southern Italy, an anthrax epidemic consisting of 41 outbreaks occurred; it claimed the lives of 124 animals belonging to different mammal species. This study is a retrospective molecular epidemiological investigation carried out on 53 isolates collected during the epidemic. A 25-loci Multiple Locus VNTR Analysis (MLVA) MLVA was initially performed to define genetic relationships, followed by an investigation of genetic diversity between epidemic strains through Single Nucleotide Repeat (SNR) analysis.
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