Fears grow over anthrax threat

Fears were today mounting that the danger to the public from America’s anthrax outbreak was greater than had initially been believed.

Concerns mounted after two women were infected with anthrax despite not being postal or media workers, the two groups of people so far affected.

And an American government scientist admitted it is possible that any letter in the country’s mail system could be infected with anthrax.

One woman, a worker at a hospital in New York, was critically ill and today was ‘‘struggling to survive’’ with inhalation anthrax, the most lethal form of the infection.

Another woman, a 51-year-old bookkeeper from New Jersey, is recovering at home after being diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax.

Investigators are looking into whether the woman in New Jersey opened a letter which had been in contact with an anthrax-laced package and picked up the deadly spores and testing a mailroom beside where the New York hospital worker worked.

Dr Anthony Fauci, of the National Institutes (corr) of Health, and one of the public health officials leading the effort to contain the anthrax outbreak, said the case meant there was a possibility any letter could be infected.

‘‘Up to yesterday there was no evidence at all that there could be or is an individual that there might be the question ‘Did they get infected by a piece of mail that went to the home?’’’ he said.

And in New York, public health officials were moving quickly to find out why a hospital worker has contracted inhalation anthrax.

The 61-year-old woman is the first case in New York of the most lethal type of anthrax, and investigators are looking at whether the mail room she worked beside has traces of anthrax.

City mayor Rudolph Giuliani said: ‘‘The hospital is being focused on because that is where she worked and and she was proximate to a mail room and we have to give that some consideration.’’

But he said tests so far on the mailroom had proved negative and added: ‘‘If all the rest come back negative then we will have to focus on the possibility that she got it somewhere else.’’

The possibility of widely-tainted mail had been dismissed until now, with scientists saying there was no evidence of the post in general becoming infected with anthrax by coming into contact with infected letters.

But Dr Fauci, speaking at the White House, said: ‘‘As the days go by and you get more information, you make your rational decision based on the information and balancing the risk and benefit of what you might want to do or not.’’

The search was also being stepped up for more letters infected with anthrax, with investigators believing there are more than the three spore-laced packages already discovered.

Homeland security director Tom Ridge said: ‘‘There is a very thorough investigation, very details, very intense investigation going on to determine whether it was one letter that cross-contaminated or whether it was more than one letter.’’

But he added that 25 billion pieces of mail had been handled since September 11 and so far there was only one possible case where someone had been infected by apparent cross-contamination.

Three people have died and now the total number of confirmed infections since the first diagnosis of the infection stands at 15.

More than 10,000 postal workers are receiving preventive antibiotics, and doctors are monitoring a further three suspected cases of inhalation anthrax among postal workers in Washington.

Scientists had believed the postal workers were the only ones infected when spores from the anthrax-tainted package sent to Senator Tom Daschle in Washington were blown into the air as it was handled by Washington’s central mail facility.

Two infected letters have been found in New York, one to NBC newsreader Tom Brokaw, two of whose staff contracted cutaneous anthrax, and one to the New York Post, where an editorial assistant and a mailroom worker were infected.

Two other people in the town have been infected, one the seven-month-old son of an ABC producer and the other Claire FLetcher, 27, from Sheffield, assistant to CBS newsreader Dan Rather.

In Florida, British-born journalist Bob Stevens, 63, has died, and a mailroom worker at American Media Incorporated, where Mr Stevens worked, has been treated successfully for inhalation anthrax.