Seven staff at a London hotel visited by Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko shortly before he fell ill have been found to have been exposed to low levels of radiation, public health officials said on Thursday.
But the Health Protection Agency underlined that the health risks were low.
”Preliminary results received from seven members of staff working in The Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel on November 1 show that they appear to have been exposed to low levels of polonium 210,” it said in a statement.
”There is no health risk in the short term and in the long term the risk is judged to be very small on the basis of initial tests.”
”All of them are assessed to have had intakes lower than the adult family member of Mr Litvinenko for whom tests also identified they had been exposed to P-210,” it added, in reference to his Litvinenko’s wife.
Kremlin critic Litvinenko died on November 23, three weeks after falling ill, with what doctors subsequently determined was radioactive poisoning.
In an apparent death-bed letter revealed the day after he died, he accused President Vladimir Putin of responsibility for his killing, a charge vigorously denied by the Kremlin. — AFP
