LAUREN GELFAN, Washington | Monday
FEDERAL investigators were on Sunday tracking an 18th infection by anthrax, while public health officials girded for a possible bioterrorist attack using the extremely-contagious smallpox virus.
A New Jersey woman was undergoing treatment for skin anthrax after handling mail sorted at the Hamilton Township mail processing facility, which delivered anthrax-laced letters postmarked from Trenton, New Jersey sent to media institutions in New York and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in Washington.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), she is the eighth person to contract the largely-treatable cutaneous form of the illness; 10 people, including four who have died, have been infected by the more lethal inhalation anthrax.
”That she got cutaneous anthrax and that there was anthrax spores identified in the mail slot from which she received mail makes it likely… that there was some degree of spores which got on a letter to which she had personal contact,” said Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health.
Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan estimated ”around 10 or 12 postal facilities” have tested positive for anthrax, all of which were likely to have been cross-contaminated by the spores sent in the letter to Daschle.
Late on Saturday, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services closed the Bellmawr Mail Distribution Center in Camden.
Camden is adjacent to the major east coast city of Philadelphia, so the discovery added another metropolitan area to a list that already includes Trenton, New York, Washington, south Florida and Kansas City, Missouri.
”That’s the reason why the word is out, people who might have had mail through those facilities should look for any unusual lesions on their hand,” Fauci advised on CBS’ ”Face the Nation.”
Anthrax found in the mailroom of Washington’s veterans hospital was cause for concern, Fauci added, though the possibility any of the facility’s patients or staff would be infected was ”extremely unlikely.”
The hospital was likely ”cross-contaminated” by mail processed at the Brentwood mail sorting center, considered the ”primary” contaminated facility because a letter sent to Daschle was processed there, Fauci said.
The number of anthrax infections is small, Fauci stressed, compared to the ”billions” of pieces of mail processed since October 5, when Florida tabloid photo editor Robert Stevens was the first victim of inhalation anthrax.
Infection by the highly-contagious smallpox, which kills one-third of those exposed to it, is a far more serious concern.
”We must be prepared for the use of smallpox as a bioterrorism weapon,” Fauci warned.
Added David Kessler, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, although there is ”no real evidence we are at risk for smallpox … the fact that it is contagious and has a high mortality are reasons for concern.”
Patients infected with smallpox, either through person-to-person contact, infected clothing or linens, cannot be cured — no current antiviral medications are effective.
Though the United States currently has an emergency supply of 50 million doses of smallpox vaccine, vaccination is not recommended to prevent the disease in the general public, the CDC has said, though it has begun vaccinating public health providers.
”We have a small cadre of staff (who have) received vaccines,” said Doctor Jeffrey Koplan, who directs the Atlanta, Georgia-based agency, noting that they were front-line public health workers — those working in the field assessing the threat of immuno-compromising illnesses.
”Our intention is to have enough vaccine available so that, should the need to use it arise, anyone who needs it can get it,” Koplan added.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has moved to acquire 300-million doses of the vaccine to inoculate against the disease, which was technically eradicated in 1979.
The US Congress has given rousing support to the effort, despite the likelihood vaccines would be unavailable before next year, according to pharmaceutical companies preparing large-scale production of the vaccines. – AFP
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