MIAMI - Fears of a biological assault on the United States grew today as top US officials blamed bio-terrorists for sending deadly bacteria anthrax in the mail and said some of those responsible for the September 11 hijack assaults probably are still in the country.
Hundreds of people were tested for
the disease, considered a viable terror weapon, biohazard investigators in head-to-toe "spacesuits" responded to public paranoia, and some Americans stockpiled antibiotics as the United States grappled with the reality of biological warfare.
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said three people who handled an anthrax-tainted letter had been found to have traces of the disease and a Florida tabloid newspaper publisher said five additional employees had been exposed.
US officials emphasised that of those exposed, only two had actually contracted anthrax. One of those two died of the disease on Oct. 5.
With the discovery of a letter containing anthrax in Nevada, three states are now affected by the disease.
Four of six Microsoft employees who were exposed to the letter in Nevada have been given a clean bill of health, a Nevada health official said today.
Two of the six have not been cleared yet, and samples collected from them are being tested by the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta, said Barbara Hunt, an official with the Washoe, Nevada County Health Office, during a news conference.
"We would continue to evaluate them for the presence of cutaneous anthrax" if the tests for inhalation anthrax are negative, she said.
Cutaneous, or skin-based anthrax, is less serious than inhalation anthrax.
A Boston Globe editor asked to be tested for anthrax two weeks after having received a threatening letter and after waking up with flu symptoms.
Kenneth Cooper, the Globe editor who received the letter, did not appear to have health problems, according to an executive at the Globe.
"It would be different if there was powder in the letter, but there wasn't," Al Larkin, a senior vice president at the Globe, told Reuters. "I talked to him today. He was feeling fine."
- REUTERS
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MIAMI - Fears of a biological assault on the United States grew today as top US officials blamed bio-terrorists for sending deadly bacteria anthrax in the mail and said some of those responsible for the September 11 hijack assaults probably are still in the country.
Hundreds of people were tested for
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