WASHINGTON - Some 1200 World Bank employees were advised to stay home from work yesterday after inconclusive tests detected anthrax contamination on mail bound for their building.
After routine anthrax testing of mail that was to be delivered to one of five World Bank buildings in Washington came back positive, it was put through a second more sophisticated test, which came back negative, World Bank spokeswoman Caroline Anstey said.
The sample in question was then sent to a facility in West Virginia for a determinative culture test, which will take as long as three days to complete.
In the meantime, employees who work in the building at Pennsylvania Avenue and 18th Street Northwest, which is not the World Bank's main building, have been asked to stay home from work and telecommute, if possible. The employees are assigned mostly to African regional issues.
Although the questionable batch of mail was never delivered to the building, it was tested next door.
There is some concern that if it turns out to have been contaminated, anthrax spores could make their way into a ventilation system that serves the building.
Last year, five people died and about a dozen others were treated because of anthrax-tainted letters.
ABC News reported that as part of that probe the Government wants to administer lie detector tests to as many as 200 current and former employees at Fort Detrick, Maryland and Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. ABC said the anthrax is consistent with the strain stored at Fort Detrick and then distributed to labs for research.
- REUTERS
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