WASHINGTON, May 21: About 1,200 employees of the World Bank were evacuated on Monday and will remain home for the next couple of days after a machine testing mail for anthrax sounded an alarm, a bank official said.

“A small batch of mail this morning tested positive for anthrax,” said Caroline Enstey, a spokeswoman for the bank.

She said a subsequent, more thorough, test of the mail came in negative, but bank management still decided to send the employees working in a World Bank annex on the corner of 18th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue home early.

The building that houses the bank’s African division and the World Bank Institute, its training arm, was vacated at about at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT), Enstey said.

“It’s very much a precautionary measure,” she said. “They were told to work at home for the next couple of days.”

The suspicious mail, meanwhile, has been sent for a third and even more sophisticated test to make sure it is clean of anthrax, according to Enstey.

IMF: The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday that some of its mail tested positive for anthrax but stressed the result was not conclusive and that further tests are being carried out.—AFP/Reuters