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Look Back at Anthrax

Aired August 01, 2002 - 14:30   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Suddenly that story that made millions of Americans afraid to open their mail returns to the headlines.
So we turn to Doctor Sanjay Gupta, live from New York.

Sanjay -- hello.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: How are you doing, Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Let's remind everybody of the dangers about anthrax.

GUPTA: That's right. Is it is hard to forget, no question. Certainly, those pictures of anthrax under the microscope, we saw that so many times.

Let me just remind you of some numbers, Kyra. Overall, what we are talking about here is 18 confirmed cases of anthrax infection. eleven of those were the inhalational kinds -- Kyra, you will remember the inhalational kind was a particularly bad kind. People were worried about dying from that -- at least 90 percent of the time; those numbers did not pan out. Overall, there were only five deaths. There were seven confirm cutaneous cases -- those were cases on the skin. Four suspected cases. So a total of 22 cases, 18 confirmed.

October 4 was the first case date. That was case down in Florida. That gentlemen, Mr. Stevens, subsequently died. The last case, November 21, in Connecticut, Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old woman out in Connecticut also died in that. Five cases total deaths.

But a lot of attention area, you will remember, Kyra, was focused on the crosscontamination as that term became so commonly known. Crosscontamination in postal offices exactly were envelopes were going through the postal facilities. And we saw those spores actually going throughout the air, possibly crosscontaminating other pieces of mail. All of that stuff is something that possibly could have led to these somewhat disparate infections, really, around the country from up and down the East Coast.

But all of that stuff is in past. We haven't had any reported infections since November 2 -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: You are a doctor, Sanjay. So tell us exactly what is anthrax, and what does it do to the body?

GUPTA: Well, you know, you'll remember well anthrax is a bacteria. And a very little known bacteria up before October of this past year. We had only had maybe couple of hundred cases total in the United States and had not had an inhalation case in over 26 years.

But basically, it is bacteria that can enter your body in three ways. If you breathe it, that's the moment dangerous: That can get into your lungs, it can cause a reaction. People used to believe before this past year that 90 percent of the time that would kill you. That was before the days of Cipro, and certainly Cipro was successfully used to treat lot of people and bring those death rates way down.

A second way certainly is through the skin. People believe 20 percent time you would die from a skin infection. Again, Cipro and other preventative means proved that to be lot lower.

And finally, you can also eat anthrax, take it into your GI track. And that was also supposed to be very deadly, but we hadn't had any cases of the GI anthrax. It was mainly that cutaneous anthrax and the inhaled anthrax, 11 cases or so of each. Five deaths total only out of all of those cases.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

GUPTA: Good seeing you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Likewise.

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