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CNN Live At Daybreak

Second Florida Inhaled Anthrax Victim Goes Home

Aired October 25, 2001 - 05:01   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: Let's get started early this morning with the latest on anthrax and that scare. More spores are turning up in offices on Capitol Hill. Police say that anthrax spores were found near a first floor freight elevator in the Hart Senate Office Building. That is the same building where an anthrax tainted letter addressed to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was opened. The Hart Building has been closed since October 17 because of the anthrax scare.

Let's look at the story in terms of the latest numbers of anthrax cases in the U.S. Thirteen people have been infected with anthrax. Three of those people have died. Three people are being treated for inhaled anthrax and seven people are being treated for skin anthrax. A total of 32 people being treated for confirmed anthrax exposure.

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, a journalist is being treated for symptoms similar to an anthrax infection. If, in fact, it does turn out to be anthrax, it would be the first case contracted on Capitol Hill.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, not all of the anthrax news is troubling. There is some reassuring news coming out of Florida this morning. A patient who was hospitalized with anthrax is now back at home.

CNN's Susan Candiotti reports that this is a bright spot in a growing investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The second of two cases of skin anthrax at the "New York Post'' now revealed. This time a mail room employee who's taking antibiotics. "The Post'' received an anthrax letter sent to the editor postmarked September 18. That news coming the same day a once critically ill patient is enjoying his first day back home. Seventy-three-year-old Ernesto Blanco, who worked in the American Media mail room in Boca Raton, Florida, released from hospital in Miami. Blanco suffered the second case of inhalation anthrax but unlike coworker Robert Stevens, Blanco survived.

MARI ORTH, BLANCO'S STEPDAUGHTER: He feels great considering what he's been through. He is mobile. He's walking around, and he needs a few days to rest and recover. It's been a very stressful time for all of us.

CANDIOTTI: No let up in pressure as investigators try to pin down the source of the anthrax contained in three known letters postmarked Trenton, September 18 and October 9. Authorities in Trenton, New Jersey shifting much of their focus from an infected mail carrier's route to the mail processing center in Hamilton Township, where 32 of 80 areas tested positive for anthrax. The carrier might have picked up anthrax at the postal center not necessarily on her route.

And a new concern near Trenton, authorities identify another facility where tainted mail might have been processed, prompting new round of environmental tests.

DIANE TODD, POSTAL SERVICE SPOKESWOMAN: And we are putting our employees in that facility on 10 days of antibiotics. That's upon recommendation of the CDC.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): In all, the Postal Service announces environmental tests at 12 more facilities in Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, the Bronx and Queens.

(voice-over): In Kansas, alarm at a postal repair shop that fixes equipment for post offices around the country. One hundred seventy-five employees sent home and put on antibiotics as a precaution. Someone discovered the equipment they've been repairing came from post offices in Florida, New Jersey and Washington, the very same locations where anthrax spores have been found.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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