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CNN Live At Daybreak

Health Officials Say We Might be Out of Woods on Additional Anthrax Cases

Aired November 07, 2001 - 07:10   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Investigators are taking a closer look at the return address on one of the anthrax tainted letters from a fictitious New Jersey school. A New Jersey police official says the details in the return address in the letter sent to Senator Tom Daschle reflect a knowledge of the New Jersey neighborhood, suggesting that whoever sent it may have lived in the area.

At the same time, a top health official offers some encouraging words about the outbreak.

CNN national correspondent Eileen O'Connor live now from Washington with the latest on all this -- good morning, Eileen.

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

Well, health officials are saying that they might be out of the woods on additional anthrax cases. It's been eight days, they note, since the last reported case of anthrax. For that reason and because so many people are protectively on antibiotics, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health says he thinks the worst could be over. For this episode, he told the Associated Press, we're out of the woods. Fauci says as people come off the antibiotics, though, doctors will have to be watchful for symptoms of the disease and that there could be one or two cases developed then.

Now, meanwhile, investigators are trying to narrow down the areas in New Jersey where they believe the letters sent with anthrax were postmarked in Trenton were mailed from. And that return address does show some familiarity with the area, according to police officials. But it could have also been put there to purposely mislead, though there is little doubt the letters were mailed from somewhere close by.

Now, in addition, investigators are looking at computer records of the metro system in New York that was used by a woman who died of inhalation anthrax in an effort to retrace her steps. Kathy Nguyen died without being able to talk to authorities about how she might have contracted the disease. She worked in a storeroom at this ear, eye, nose and throat hospital in New York City. Her home and the hospital were not found to have any significant contamination. It does not appear she came into contact with any of the anthrax laced letters. Investigators are not ruling out the possibility she might have actually come into contact with whoever it is that mailed these letters and perhaps their anthrax supply -- Miles. O'BRIEN: Eileen, give us a sense of how they're sort of retracing Ms. Nguyen's steps. This is not an easy thing to do, obviously.

O'CONNOR: No, it isn't. I mean they've been basically going back to her neighbors and talking to them. She doesn't appear to have any family or relatives in the area. They also have taken her metro card. Apparently she used that to get from her apartment into the city and into her job at the hospital. So what they've done is there's computer records that when she uses that card it shows up where and when she used it. So they're trying to look at those computer records and trying to figure out where she might have been in the city right before she contracted the disease.

They believe that she would have had to inhale a significant amount of spores to get the disease as she had it and as you know, she got the more serious form, the inhalation form of the disease -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: The other thing that has come out is that she moonlighted at a restaurant. Is that a focus of attention, as well?

O'CONNOR: It has been, but investigators are steering away from that, saying they don't believe they found anything significant there. But it is something that they had been looking at. Apparently she worked part time at this restaurant so they went there and were trying to talk to people there, trying to see who she's been in contact with over the last several weeks -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Eileen O'Connor in Washington, thank you very much.

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