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American Morning

New Jersey Hospital Employee Contracts Inhalation Anthrax

Aired October 30, 2001 - 11:32   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Also, the FBI scrambling now to find the source of that anthrax threat. We heard more from it last hour at the White House. Susan Candiotti now, in Washington, tracking more of it with us now. Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Bill. For the longest time, investigators have been working under the assumption that you could not pick up anthrax from mail delivered to your home. After all, there have been no documented cases and there are no documented cases of a situation like that occurring.

However, this day, as you heard just a little while eye ago, according Doctor Anthony Fauci from the National Institutes for Health, this is a theory that now investigators are looking at very intensively. Why? Well, because of that case in New York that you've heard about. A woman in critical condition in Manhattan being treated for a suspected case of inhaling anthrax, the most serious form of infection. If the infection is confirmed, it would mark the first case of inhalation anthrax in New York City.

The patient is a 61-year-old woman who works in a storage supply area near the mail room of the Manhattan Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital. The woman might have handled mail as part of her work but that's very unclear. The hospital is closed while about 300 employees are being interviewed, and, if necessary, they'll be put on antibiotics.

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RUDY GIULIANI, MAYOR OF NEW YORK: There's no question. There's the possibility she got it somewhere else. The hospital is being focused on because that's where she worked, and she was proximate to a mail room, so you have give that a lot of consideration. But so far, the ten samples that have come back have come back negative. And if all of the rest come back negative, then we're going to have to focus on the possibility she got it somewhere else.

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CANDIOTTI: In New Jersey, investigators there are trying to figure out how a woman contracted skin anthrax. She lives in Hamilton Township where other postal employees have been infected, but she has no apparent link to postal facility for the news media. So, one more case confirmed, one more suspected case of anthrax. Here's the latest tally: 15 total infections, 3 deaths from inhalation, 9 cases of inhalation people being treated, and 6 cases of cutaneous, or skin, anthrax.

Finally, the postmaster general announcing this morning two more mail offices in the Washington area testing positive for anthrax. Spores have also been found on a feeder belt at a mail center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Officials say there is no threat to workers there and no plan to shut down that facility for now. Bill?

HEMMER: All right, Susan, keep us posted.

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