‘Anthrax’ found at mail centre

Officials closed the Navy mail-sorting offices and 11 other post offices in and around Washington yesterday after an automated alarm and an follow-up test indicated the possible presence of anthrax spores at the Navy facility.

Further testing was being performed today at the National Naval Medical Centre in suburban Bethesda, Maryland, Chun said. An earlier follow-up test yesterday indicated 138 anthrax spores were present, Chun said.

Preliminary tests for anthrax often are inaccurate and there have been several false alarms since the still unsolved anthrax attacks in 2001.

The anthrax-by-mail attacks in late 2001 showed that inhaling only a few spores, in some cases, was enough to infect some people with the deadly disease. Five people died in those attacks, which also forced the shutdown and cleanup of postal facilities in Washington and elsewhere.
The sampling equipment at the Navy facility is among the measures meant to prevent a repeat of those 2001 attacks. Mail heading to Congress and federal agencies also is irradiated to kill any germs before it is delivered.

There was no indication any of 1200 to 1500 other postal workers affected were exposed to anthrax, and Postal Service spokesman Azeezaly Jaffer said last night that none had been offered antibiotics as a precaution.

Jaffer said authorities decided "out of an abundance of caution" to close the facilities and test them for any contamination.

Equipment that routinely monitors the air at the Naval Automated Processing Facility in the District of Columbia indicated on Wednesday the presence of "small amounts of biological pathogens, possibly anthrax", said Rachael Sunbarger, a Homeland Security spokeswoman.

After the initial field test, eight air samples were sent for testing to a government contractor at Fort Detrick, Maryland, the Army’s biological defence centre, according to Lieutenant-Commander Edward Zeigler, spokesman for the Naval District of Washington. One sample tested positive for anthrax and seven tested negative, he said.