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NEW YORK, Oct 31: A New York hospital worker died on Wednesday from inhaling anthrax, the fourth such death in the United States this month, but officials said they did not know how she contracted the potential germ warfare agent.
The 61-year-old woman, who worked in a storage supply room in the basement of the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, became ill last Thursday but her disease was confirmed as the inhalation form of anthrax only on Tuesday.
By then she was gravely ill and fighting for her life, according to health officials, who said they were particularly concerned because the patient, unlike more than a dozen others infected with anthrax in the United States, did not work directly with mail.
“She died early this morning, but I do not have any other details at this point,” said New York City Health Department spokeswoman Sandra Mullin.
A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner said the woman, identified as Kathy Nguyen of the Bronx, died at Lenox Hill Hospital, in Manhattan.
An autopsy was being done and the hospital where she worked was closed indefinitely for environmental testing. Some preliminary tests came back negative for anthrax, health officials said.
City health officials started providing antibiotics on Tuesday to employees, patients, and visitors to the hospital where Nguyen worked since Oct 11, two weeks before the onset of her symptoms.
Nguyen was the first person to contract the more dangerous inhalation form of the disease in New York and the first outside a media company in the country’s largest city. The anthrax outbreak, just weeks after hijacked plane attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, has so far hit people in Florida, New Jersey, Washington and New York.
Authorities do not yet know who is behind the anthrax outbreak or whether they are part of an orchestrated germ warfare campaign.
Two postal workers in Washington and a supermarket tabloid pictures editor in Florida have also died from the disease. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has confirmed 16 cases of anthrax this month, most of them coming through the mail, and most of them skin anthrax.
SCARE AT ISRAELI PM OFFICE: The offices of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Moshe Katsav were partially evacuated on Wednesday over anthrax fears after envelopes containing suspect white powder arrived at the buildings, officials said.
A whole floor of the prime minister’s office was quarantined after an envelope containing white powder was found by office employees. Health ministry technicians evacuated employees to the hospital for anthrax tests.
Earlier, a letter addressed to Katsav himself was found countaining white powder, Israeli public radio said, adding that the whole first floor of his offices was evacuated.
A presidential spokesman said the letter was found in the archives department.
The suspicious white powder — which has become the hallmark of anthrax attacks and hoaxes around the world as fears of bio-terrorism rise — was sent to a laboratory for analysis.
Workers in the presidential offices received instructions on dealing with suspect letters and parcels several days ago, officials said.
While there have been scores of anthrax scares in Israel in recent weeks, the president’s and prime minister’s offices were the highest-level targets yet.
Suspect envelopes which proved to be hoaxes have also been found in the offices of left-wing deputies in the Israeli parliament and in newspaper offices.
The holy city’s main postal sorting office was also closed for two days earlier this month and its several hundred employees sent home while a suspicious envelope, posted from abroad, was tested and found to be harmless.—Reuters/AFP
