A dairy cow has died from the bacterial disease anthrax near Tatura in northern Victoria.

Victoria's Department of Economic Development has placed the property under quarantine and stock on the farm are being vaccinated.

The dead cow has been incinerated in an effort to isolate any outbreak. Listen Duration: 4 minutes 37 seconds 4 m 37 s Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Dr Charles Milne, Chief Veterinary Officer for Victoria, talking about an anthrax outbreak. ( Warwick Long ) Download 2.1 MB

The disease, which lives in the soil, has been in Australia for 150 years but is rare. Most recent cases have been in the dairying region of Victoria's Goulburn Valley.

Victoria's chief veterinary officer, Dr Charles Milne, said an incident control centre had been set up at Tatura to respond to the outbreak.

"We have isolated the farm and quarantined it," he said.

"All animals on the farm have now been vaccinated, the neighbouring farms have been assessed and a further six farms are being vaccinated on a precautionary basis."

Farmers are being warned that further sporadic cases are possible.

Anthrax stops blood clotting, but does not affect the milk from dairy cows.

"It (anthrax) overwhelms the animal. Usually the first signs of the disease is sudden death with bloody discharges from the orifices of the animals," Dr Milne said.

It is the first confirmed case of anthrax in the region since 2009.

In 2007, 34 cattle died on eight properties from the disease at Tatura and Stanhope.

During that outbreak, a 34-year-old knackery worker was treated at hospital after contracting skin anthrax from working with infected cattle.

A mass vaccination program of 32,000 cattle in northern Victoria was ordered.