Latest death linked to 'weapons grade' anthrax

2 Nov, 2001 10:44 AM3 mins to read

By GEOFF CUMMING and AGENCIES

The anthrax that killed a New York hospital worker is the same "weapons grade" strain of the bacteria found in letters sent to Senator Tom Daschle and news organisations.

"We haven't identified anything different about this strain," said Julie Gerberding, of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

Kathy Nguyen, a supply room worker at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, died on Thursday, three days after doctors placed her on a ventilator.

A co-worker is undergoing tests for a suspicious skin lesion, but no spores have been found at the hospital.

Mrs Nguyen's death and a case of skin anthrax affecting a New Jersey accountant have worried authorities because of the lack of a direct link to the news media or the Postal Service, from where the disease is presumed to have spread.

The New Jersey woman with skin anthrax works in Hamilton, where the anthrax-laced letters sent to Daschle, the New York Post and NBC were postmarked. Her case adds to fears that ordinary mail may have been contaminated by the anthrax-laced letters during processing.

But in the Nguyen case, investigators are sticking to the theory that the victim suffered direct exposure to anthrax, rather than opening "cross-contaminated" mail.

The link to the previous anthrax findings will help ease fears that the bioterrorism threat could be more widespread than the three known letters.

But anthrax continued to spread by mail yesterday, reaching the Midwest for the first time and the US Embassy in Lithuania.

The embassy mailroom was sealed off and 120 embassy staff offered antibiotics after spores were found in mailbags sent from the contaminated US State Department building near Washington.

Traces of the bacteria were found at a postal facility in Kansas City, Missouri, and at a postal maintenance centre in Indianapolis, also in the Midwest, on equipment sent from a contaminated mail-processing centre near Trenton, New Jersey.

Spores were also found in mailrooms in four US Food and Drug Administration buildings in Rockville, near Washington.

Public anxiety after the September 11 airborne terror attacks was not eased when a Northwest Airlines jet was diverted to Detroit's Metro Airport after its pilot reported a security problem aboard.

The Airbus A320 with 78 people on board, was flying from Washington to Minneapolis when a passenger found a note suggesting a threat to the aircraft.

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