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American Morning

Precautionary Measures Taken After Test for Anthrax Came Back Positive

Aired November 07, 2003 - 07:25   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The government is taking precautionary measures today after a test for anthrax at a Washington area postal facility came back positive.
Kathleen Koch is following the story for us in Washington this morning -- Kathleen, good morning.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

What happened is that on Wednesday that equipment at the Navy Consolidated Mail Facility here in Washington, D.C. detected very minute traces of anthrax, non-infectious levels. So, all throughout the Washington, D.C. area, any postal facilities that fed mail into that have been shut down; also, some facilities in Maryland and Virginia, 11 all total.

Now, also, the mail handlers or the contract workers at that Navy facility, some five of them, they work at this Navy Annex. And the Navy was told by the Centers for Disease Control last night that those five workers should begin taking antibiotics. The Navy says that they will follow that recommendation.

And the postal service says it's shutting down its facilities out of an abundance of caution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZEEZALY JAFFER, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE: From what I understand, there were nine -- eight tests run at the Navy facility. And seven of them came back negative. One came back positive. So in essence one of the seven came back positive. They retested it again and it came back positive. And so they're doing the second level of testing now on the facility. And as a precaution for the safety of our employees and our customers, we decided to go ahead and close our facilities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: And it's very important to keep in mind that there were only 138 anthrax spores detected and it takes some 8,000 to 10,000 for anyone to become infected -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Kathleen Koch for us this morning in Washington.

Kathleen, thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Back Positive>


Aired November 7, 2003 - 07:25   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The government is taking precautionary measures today after a test for anthrax at a Washington area postal facility came back positive.
Kathleen Koch is following the story for us in Washington this morning -- Kathleen, good morning.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

What happened is that on Wednesday that equipment at the Navy Consolidated Mail Facility here in Washington, D.C. detected very minute traces of anthrax, non-infectious levels. So, all throughout the Washington, D.C. area, any postal facilities that fed mail into that have been shut down; also, some facilities in Maryland and Virginia, 11 all total.

Now, also, the mail handlers or the contract workers at that Navy facility, some five of them, they work at this Navy Annex. And the Navy was told by the Centers for Disease Control last night that those five workers should begin taking antibiotics. The Navy says that they will follow that recommendation.

And the postal service says it's shutting down its facilities out of an abundance of caution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZEEZALY JAFFER, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE: From what I understand, there were nine -- eight tests run at the Navy facility. And seven of them came back negative. One came back positive. So in essence one of the seven came back positive. They retested it again and it came back positive. And so they're doing the second level of testing now on the facility. And as a precaution for the safety of our employees and our customers, we decided to go ahead and close our facilities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: And it's very important to keep in mind that there were only 138 anthrax spores detected and it takes some 8,000 to 10,000 for anyone to become infected -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Kathleen Koch for us this morning in Washington.

Kathleen, thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Back Positive>