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Cutaneous Anthrax Infection of CBS Worker Announced by Giuliani

Aired October 18, 2001 - 11:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, while we were listening to that news conference, another news conference taking place in New York City, with Mayor Rudy Giuliani talking about the latest anthrax infection discovered and this one was an employee of CBS News. Let's go ahead and listen in to a couple of minutes of that news conference and bring you up to date on that story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI (R), NEW YORK CITY: On October 1st a woman working at CBS began to experience swelling. She was treated on October 4th with penicillin. And then on Friday, as a result of the publicity regarding NBC, she came to -- I believe it was -- the Department of Health.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She called it.

GIULIANI: She called the Department of Health, and she was put on Cipro and tests were taken, including a biopsy. The test came back late last night or early this morning as positive for anthrax. I should emphasize that she is recovering if not recovered completely. She responded well to both the penicillin and the Cipro and should be alright.

And that she works at CBS, she handles mail. And no one else at CBS curing this very lengthy time period -- which is what it is, since October 1st -- from what we can tell has any symptoms. So there's no indication anything has spread to anyone else. And as you know, this disease is not a contagious disease. We did tests at NBC, environmental test the other day, at the mail room. So that's already been done and they're being analyzed and we'll have those results back.

But out of an excess of caution, what we will do now is conduct interviews, to try to determine the source of the anthrax. Conduct interviews at CBS. We will do more sampling. Broader sampling of the atmosphere there, beyond the mail room. And we will identify and work with people to see if there's any need for testing of them, people that were in the same areas that she was. Whether there's need for testing of them or prophylaxis for them. There's no need to do that generally.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KAGAN: That was New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani talking about the latest person to test positive for anthrax exposure. A woman who works at CBS News. More on that story in a moment.

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