WASHINGTON, Oct 24: Anthrax was found on Tuesday at a military facility that sorts mail for the White House, as tests confirmed that two postal workers died of the disease and a possible new case of its most virulent form emerged.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer revealed that anthrax spores had been detected at the military base, the latest government site hit in a spate of germ warfare mailings that have also targeted media groups.
“It was found on what is called a ‘slitter,’ which is a mechanical device that opens the mail. It was not found on any mail itself,” Fleischer said.
But preliminary tests on some 120 White House mail workers came back negative for anthrax, but they were given a drug known to fight the sometimes lethal bacteria, the White House said on Wednesday.
“No positive tests have come back,” presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters.
“The president has full faith in the Secret Service and all the protection regimen they put in place across the board at the White House,” he added.
President George W. Bush said he still felt safe, even though it appeared the White House may have been targeted.
“I don’t have anthrax,” he said twice, but declined to say whether he had been tested for the disease.
“I am confident when I come to work tomorrow that I’ll be safe. We’re working hard to find out who’s doing this and bring them to justice.”
A new case of inhalation anthrax, the most potent manifestation of the disease, was meanwhile suspected in New Jersey, where a female mail handler was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
State health official George DiFerdinando said at a news conference that the woman, who asked not to be identified, was responding to treatment.
At least three anthrax-laced letters were sent through the Hamilton mail processing center near Trenton, New Jersey, where the woman works, and were addressed to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and the New York Post.
In New York, postal workers at five key facilities in Manhattan will be given the antibiotic Cipro in a bid to counter growing fears of anthrax contamination.
The German manufacturer of Cipro, Bayer Corp., and the US government reached a tentative agreement late Tuesday to supply the anthrax-fighting antibiotic at discount prices.
The US government would like to have a reserve of 200 million doses of Cipro, enough to treat 12 million people for 60 days, health officials said.
Bayer said it will be able to make this amount available in three months.
Thousands of postal workers here started preventive courses of antibiotics Tuesday as two of their colleagues from the Brentwood mail processing facility fought inhalation anthrax in a Virginia hospital.
Authorities, meanwhile, announced that two other men from the Brentwood depot — whose deaths were reported Monday — had indeed succumbed to anthrax.—AFP
