An investigation has been launched by disease control experts after what is believed to be the first fatal case of the rare and deadly anthrax bug in Scotland for 35 years.
The 50-year-old man died from blood poisoning in July, but subsequent tests have shown that the bacterium was the likely cause of his death.
The man, who lived in the Scottish borders, was named locally as Christopher "Pascal" Norris.
His home has been sealed off and an incident control team is investigating whether there is any risk of anthrax spores in the environment, according to NHS Borders, which runs local health services. Members of his family are receiving treatment as a precaution.
The victim, who lived at Black Lodge, in Stobs, Hawick, worked with materials such as untreated hides. He became ill early last month and died on July 8 of blood poisoning in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
Health officials are trying to trace the man's relatives and other people known to have access to his home. Anyone else who visited the house before July 17 has also been asked to contact NHS Borders.
Scottish National Party MSP Christine Grahame said NHS Borders had assured her that the man's family was "receiving preventative treatment as a precaution and had been offered counselling."
She added: "This is obviously a very serious development given that it is 30 years since the last Anthrax death in the UK. If treated quickly with antibiotics patients can be cured but it appears this was not picked up quickly enough in this instance and the victim died very soon after being seen by his doctor."
Health Protection Scotland, the agency responsible for tackling outbreaks of infectious disease, said anyone who visited the man's home was "being assessed for risk of infection, with appropriate action being taken for each individual as required."
But a spokeswoman reassured the public that anthrax was not passed from person to person. She said: "Anthrax is a difficult disease to contract and is not passed from person to person. There is no reason to think that the members of the general public are at any risk."
Anthrax is now uncommon in humans in the UK, with only a handful of cases recorded in the last decade. The last laboratory-confirmed case of anthrax in Scotland was in 1987 and affected a young girl who later recovered. The last anthrax fatality in the country was in 1971 when a 48-year-old woman died.
The disease is more likely to be found in animals in South and central America, south and east Europe, Asia and Africa. It most commonly occurs in wild animals such as cattle, sheep and goats but can also occur in humans when they are exposed to infected animals.
Anthrax is caused by the Bacillus anthracis organism. This bacteria can form spores which can either be eaten in contaminated meat, breathed in, or infect the skin directly through human-to-animal contact. The symptoms of the disease are often difficult to distinguish from other, less serious infections, such as flu.
In more than 95% of cases the infection is caught by direct contact with the skins or tissues of infected animals, according to Health Protection Scotland. Those at highest risk in the UK are those who directly handle dead animals, such as abattoir workers and tanners.
The other two forms of the disease - inhalation and intestinal anthrax - are much more rare.
