Hundreds in anthrax alert as mail man fights for life

More than 2,000 postal workers were tonight awaiting the results of anthrax tests after a colleague in Washington DC was diagnosed with the most serious form of the infection.

The man, who has not been named, was in a serious but stable condition in hospital with inhalation anthrax, the type of the infection which has already killed one man in Florida and infected a second during the wave of the germ attacks.