Scientists scour home of elderly anthrax victim

The investigation into the mystery death of a 94-year-old American woman from anthrax was being stepped up today.

Ottile Lundgren, of Oxford, Connecticut, died last night, five days after being admitted to hospital and just hours after being confirmed as suffering from inhalation anthrax, the most deadly form of the infection.

But her death has baffled public health officials as the pensioner had no obvious contact with the deadly spores and was virtually housebound.

Previous cases have affected postal workers and staff members at media outlets which have been targeted with letters infected with the anthrax bacteria.

Today her house was being searched by scientists in a bid to find the spores, while local postal workers were being treated with powerful antibiotics as a precaution, in case they came into contact with the deadly bacteria.

Connecticut’s governor John Rowland said: ‘‘The woman has not been all that mobile, 94 years old, very limited schedule. So we’re really perplexed as to how this anthrax could have gotten to her.

‘‘We’re obviously focusing on the mail because that has been the cause of other anthrax scares in the past.’’

And Dr Howard Quentzel, chief of infectious diseases at Griffin Hospital, in Derby, Connecticut, where the pensioner was treated, said: ‘‘There’s no evidence now to explain where the anthrax has come from.’’

Dr Stephen Spear, the dead woman’s family doctor, said the case had caused fear in the local community.

‘‘We have really very little to put our fingers on right now to have a specific answer to this,’’ the doctor told Fox News.

‘‘We have seen a substantial community response to the questions and concerns about their own health risk.’’

Mrs Lundgren’s diagnosis brings to 11 the number of people with the deadlier inhaled form of anthrax, which has killed five of those confirmed as suffering from it.

One death, that of 61-year-old New York hospital worker Kathy Nyguen, has prompted a similar mystery and remains unexplained more than three weeks after she died of inhalation anthrax.

A further seven people, all of them mail workers or members of the New York media, suffered the less dangerous cutaneous form of the infection.

The pensioner’s death comes after the discovery of a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy at the Congress in Washington DC which was found to be ‘‘as lethal’’ as one sent to his colleague, Senator Tom Dashcle last month.

The letter to Mr Leahy only emerged after a search through post to the Congress which had been halted after the discovery of the letter to Mr Daschle.

An FBI microbiologist revealed there were easily ‘‘billions’’ of the deadly spores in the letter, which is undergoing a battery of forensic tests.

Attorney-general John Ashcroft said the FBI is making progress in the hunt for the perpetrator of the anthrax attack.

‘‘We certainly have some better leads than we had a few days ago when the FBI first put out its profile,’’ Mr Ashcroft said.

‘‘And we will have to wait and see and measure the extent to which these leads turn out to be either productive or non productive.’’

FBI psychological profilers are working on the theory that a crazed loner who worked in a laboratory is behind the attacks.