Civilian victims list grows on two fronts

26 Oct, 2001 11:20 AM4 mins to read

By GEOFF CUMMING and AGENCIES

Two more US postal workers were admitted to hospital with inhaled anthrax yesterday as the killer was found in mail centres serving the State Department and the CIA.

All mail deliveries to the State Department, the hub of US foreign policy, were stopped and 135 postal staff placed on antibiotics after a worker at a mail facility in Sterling, Virginia, was diagnosed with the respiratory infection.

He is being treated with Cipro and other antibiotics after complaining of the symptoms, which include fever, aching, fatigue and breathing trouble.

Traces of anthrax were found in a CIA building in Langley, Virginia, where incoming mail is sorted.

An official said the amount was "medically insignificant" but the building was closed for further testing and cleaning.

The State Department's Sterling plant processes mail to US embassies abroad and receives mail from the Brentwood sorting centre in Washington, workplace of two postal employees who died this week.

A second employee from a mail centre in Trenton, New Jersey, is also being treated for suspected inhalation anthrax. On Tuesday, a woman from the facility that processed anthrax-laden letters sent to Congress and two New York media companies became the state's first case of inhalation anthrax.

"The second case is in better shape than the first because it was caught earlier," a New Jersey health official said.

An anthrax-laced letter postmarked at Trenton passed through Brentwood on its way to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle's office on Capitol Hill. Finely milled anthrax spores may have escaped as the letter went through a mechanical sorter at Brentwood and then spread through the atmosphere.

Six Brentwood employees, two in serious condition, are being treated in Washington hospitals for suspected inhalation anthrax.

Anthrax traces have also been found at a mail screening centre for the White House, which receives mail from Brentwood, and a facility near Washington's international airport.

But the discharge from a Florida hospital of an American Media employee who survived inhalation anthrax has raised hopes that the infection is not as lethal as previously believed.

Ernesto Blanco told the Miami Herald that he wants to go back to work as soon as possible. His co-worker, photo editor Bob Stevens, died from anthrax on October 5, four days after Blanco entered hospital.

Doctors credit Blanco's relatively early treatment with Cipro for his survival and say the 73-year-old's prognosis is good.

"God chose me as an example, to serve as spokesman to humanity, not to be afraid," the Cuban exile said. "We feel satisfied that at least we've won one point in this battle. We know this can be beaten."

Doctors say some other inhalation patients are doing better than expected and Washington health chief Ivan Walks said anthrax "is not a death sentence".

Authorities are also treating several cases of skin anthrax, the less virulent form of the disease, in New Jersey and New York.

The Bush Administration, on the back foot at home from the bioterrorism threat, was also on the defensive yesterday over its bombing campaign in Afghanistan.

US warplanes hit a crowded bus and worshippers leaving a mosque in their latest raids to flush out Osama bin Laden, the ruling Taleban said.

Unease about the use of cluster bombs increased as the United Nations reported that nine people were killed in a village outside the western city of Herat. Cluster weapons open above ground and scatter anti-tank and anti-personnel bomblets over a wide area.

The Herat deaths occurred on Monday when US planes attacked a military compound.

Early yesterday, at least 16 people died and 25 were injured in further raids on the city.

Bombers and strike aircraft continued to attack the Taleban frontline north of Kabul as well as targets around Bagram airport, the southern stronghold of Kandahar and the northern centre of Mazar-e-Sharif.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson called for a pause in the raids or the creation of a humanitarian corridor for thousands of refugees fleeing the bombing.

UN officials in Pakistan voiced concern about cooperation between Islamabad and the Taleban to stop refugees leaving Afghanistan.

"There is an attempt to contain people from coming here," a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said at a refugee camp near the Chaman border crossing.

A Pakistani border official admitted his paramilitary force was arresting Afghans illegally entering the country and handing them back to Taleban authorities.

Pakistan says it already has more than three million Afghan refugees and cannot take more. But UN officials fear an influx of 300,000 refugees in a "short period".

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