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WASHINGTON, Nov 5: Traces of anthrax have been found at the Pentagon post office, but the facility was decontaminated over the weekend and no further signs of the potentially deadly spores were found, military officials said on Monday.
The contamination in two mail rental boxes was the first sign of anthrax at the sprawling headquarters of the US military, where 189 people were killed on Sept. 11 when a hijacked airliner was rammed into the building.
Anthrax has been found in many federal buildings across the capital including the Supreme Court, the State Department, the Hart Senate Office Building, the Health Department, The Treasury and the Food and Drug Administration.
Over the past month, there have been 17 confirmed anthrax cases in the United States in what President George W. Bush has called a second wave of terrorism after Sept. 11. Four people have died from the disease.
The Pentagon post office in a shopping area of the building is used by thousands of civilian and military workers. But it was not clear whether the anthrax spores originated at the Pentagon or in mail forwarded from another Washington postal facility.
Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood told Reuters that the two positive samples were among 17 test samples taken at the post office on Oct. 30 and were located in two of the facility’s 214 mail boxes that are available for rent.
One of the boxes was unassigned and one was rented by a Navy sailor, who was being tested for possible anthrax exposure at nearby Bethesda Naval Medical Center, according to the Pentagon.
About 23,000 military and civilian personnel work at the Pentagon and large numbers of them use the post office.
“The entire Pentagon Concourse post office was decontaminated on Sunday,” Flood told Reuters. “Re-testing results were all negative.”
ARMY EXPERTS TO CHECK FACILITY: But as a precautionary measure, he added, Army biological warfare specialists would conduct further testing at the post office and the facility would remain closed until the results were known.
All those who rented post office boxes would be contacted and screened for possible contact with anthrax spores, Flood said.
“We are taking every precaution,” he told Reuters.
Sunday’s decontamination was done by workers under contract from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Pentagon post office is located in a mall of shops and other facilities inside the building, where only workers with passes are allowed. The random samples were taken because the feeder facility for the Pentagon post office was the Brentwood Post Office in Washington, where anthrax traces were found last month.
The Brentwood office, a major mail routing facility for the nation’s capital, was closed on Oct. 15 after the traces were found and all postal workers in the Washington area — including six at the Pentagon Concourse office — began receiving precautionary doses of medicine for anthrax.
Two Brentwood postal workers contracted inhalation anthrax and died, after handling or being near a tainted letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.—Reuters
