Anthrax has claimed a fourth victim in the United States and spores were detected at a postal facility in the central US state of Missouri, as investigators were still clueless as to the source of the deadly spores that have infected 15 people since October.
Anthrax spores were found at a post office in Kansas City, Missouri, that handled mail from the US capital of Washington, local officials said late Wednesday.
Missouri is the fifth state where anthrax bacteria has been found following the outbreak of the anthrax scare October 5 in Florida. Four people have died from pulmonary anthrax in Florida, Washington and New York.
No postal workers at the Stamp Fulfillment Services, where stamps are canceled for stamp collectors, have shown signs of anthrax infection, Missouri health officials said at a press briefing in Kansas City.
They said the public was not at risk, since the facility does not handle regular mail.
Kathy Nguyen, a 61-year-old hospital worker in Manhattan, became the fourth victim of pulmonary anthrax early Wednesday, barely more than 48 hours after admitting herself to the Lenox Hill Hospital here late Sunday.
Her case has rattled investigators probing the bioterror attack in the United States because she had no known connection with the media, government offices or the postal service -- the links behind most of the 14 other confirmed cases of anthrax in either its respiratory form or its more benign cutaneous form.
New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said: "So far, we have not been able to trace back to anything that leads us to her contact with anthrax. The investigators are looking at every possible way that she may have come in contact with anthrax."
US Surgeon General David Satcher said public health authorities were anxious to find out how Nguyen had contracted the disease "because that will tell us who else might have been exposed."
"There might well be other letters than the ones that we've been familiar with already," Satcher said in an interview with CNN's "Larry King Live" program.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told a packed press conference that "some indications of anthrax" were found on the clothes worn by Nguyen when she arrived at Lenox Hill Hospital on Sunday.
He also announced that a possible case of skin anthrax in a co-worker of Nguyen was being investigated and that suspicious smears on a Queens resident's telephone bill were being tested for anthrax.
TV reports said the Vietnamese-born Nguyen, whose condition had deteriorated too seriously before investigators had a chance to talk to her, had no relatives in the United States.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Nguyen's death was "an event of concern," while US Attorney General John Ashcroft said the Justice Department had made "no progress" in its investigation into the bioterror attacks.
Ashcroft said that authorities were working "very hard to prevent additional problems" with further contamination by the anthrax bacteria but had drawn "no conclusions."
Tests on Justice Department buildings and facilities, where traces of anthrax were discovered, were still being "processed," the attorney general said.
Ashcroft was also unable to release further information about a security warning issued Monday in response to "credible" threats of further terrorist attacks on US targets, but urged continued public vigilance in the face of such threats.
Also Wednesday, the State Department said it had decided to expand testing for anthrax at its headquarters, due to concerns from employees, and confirmed the discovery of apparent traces of the bacteria in the US Embassy in Lithuania.
Meanwhile, a second employee at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital came forward with a skin lesion, and a biopsy has been performed and was being tested for anthrax by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Giuliani said, adding that the results were expected late Wednesday or Thursday.
The mayor also said a suspicious envelope handed over by a resident of Sunnyside, Queens, was being tested for anthrax after inconclusive initial tests.
After noticing "brown smears" on the outside of a bill from the Verizon telephone company, a major provider in the city, the man put on some gloves and placed the envelope in a plastic bag before handing it over to authorities, the mayor said -- NEW YORK, (AFP)
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