Woman, 94, becomes new anthrax victim

A letter to US Senator Patrick Leahy was laced with billions of anthrax spores, authorities said, as a suspected case of the most deadly form of the disease mysteriously appeared in Connecticut.

An elderly woman in a rural area of the state preliminarily tested positive for inhalation anthrax, the first suspected case in several weeks.

The woman, named in the local press as 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren, was critically ill in hospital today, as authorities awaited additional test results from the government.

‘‘It’s difficult to explain how the person contracted anthrax,’’ Connecticut Governor John Rowland said. ‘‘There is no evidence they contracted the disease as a result of a criminal act.’’

Four Americans have died and 13 have been struck down by anthrax since early October. The Connecticut case is the first instance of inhaled anthrax since a New York City hospital employee died on October 31.

In Washington, trace amounts of anthrax were found in the mailrooms of two congressional offices and FBI agents and scientists began their analysis of the Leahy letter found last week.

An FBI microbiologist said there were easily billions of anthrax spores in the letter addressed to Leahy. Scientists have said 8,000 to 10,000 spores are enough to infect a person with inhalation anthrax.

An investigator who found the Leahy letter in a bin of unopened congressional mail last Friday night could feel powder inside the envelope, the microbiologist said. A two-minute test of the plastic garbage bag that was used to hold the Leahy letter detected 23,000 anthrax spores, he said.

That letter was postmarked October 9, around the time a similar anthrax-tainted letter was sent to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle.

Postal Inspector Dan Mihalko said the Leahy letter never got to the senator’s office because it was quarantined along with all other Senate mail after the discovery of the Daschle letter.

Mihalko said there was an ‘‘extremely high probability’’ that the Leahy letter was misrouted on October 12 to a State Department mail centre in Sterling, Virginia, where a worker came down with inhalation anthrax.

The outside of the Leahy letter appears virtually identical to the Daschle letter and bears the same fictitious ‘‘Greendale School’’ return address, all capital letters and other characteristics.

Attorney General John Ashcroft expressed hope the recent release of an FBI profile of the likely attacker would produce new clues. ‘‘We certainly have some better leads than we had a few days ago when the FBI hadn’t first put out its profile,’’ Ashcroft said.

The offices of Senators Edward Kennedy and Christopher Dodd were closed early after trace amounts of the bacteria were detected in their mailrooms. Officials said the samples were so minute they did not pose a health risk.

Police said they suspected the Kennedy and Dodd mail offices were cross-contaminated by spores from the letters to Daschle and Leahy.

For much of the last week, officials had expressed hope the anthrax scares were waning, but the Connecticut case raised new uncertainty.

The woman tested positive for the inhaled form of the disease in five separate tests conducted by the Department of Public Health and Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut, the governor said.

More tests were being conducted by experts at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Results were expected Wednesday. ‘‘Testing by the CDC could prove negative,’’ Rowland cautioned.

He said the woman lived in Oxford, a small rural community about 30 miles south west of Hartford. She was originally treated for pneumonia and admitted on Friday to Griffin Hospital. The next day tests pointed to anthrax.