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CNN Saturday Morning News

Trace Amounts of Anthrax Discovered in Various Locations

Aired November 10, 2001 - 08:17   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Only trace amounts of anthrax are now being discovering in various locations, but they are still causing concern. Traces have been found in at least four more postal facilities in New Jersey.

CNN's Jason Carroll is in Trenton this morning to give us a little bit more on that -- hi, Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you, Kyra.

Let me just give you a rundown of what's happened here. The health department here in New Jersey ran an environmental check of all the postal facilities that are served by the Hamilton facility. That is where we saw the original case of anthrax here in New Jersey.

There are 49 facilities that the Hamilton facility serves. Health workers took 196 samples from those facilities. They checked the public areas. They checked the ventilation areas as well as the mail sorting areas.

They found that four facilities tested positive for anthrax. It's described as minimal or trace amounts of anthrax at those four facilities, one in Trenton, the one where we are here, one in Princeton, one in Rocky Hill and one in Jackson, New Jersey.

They theorize, Kyra, that cross-contamination from the Hamilton facility may have caused the problem. So what they've done is overnight two teams have -- two health teams have come in and they've cleaned up the four facilities. The cleanup was described as minimal by one health official. Health officials also saying last night that the four facilities are safe for the workers and for the public.

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EDDY BRESNITZ, NEW JERSEY HEALTH DEPARTMENT: These findings represent, from our, in our opinion, that these workers at these facilities are at very low risk for developing the inhalation or cutaneous anthrax. We have not recommended antibiotic prophylaxis or preventive antibiotics for any of these workers, although several hundred of them elected to start an antibiotic prophylaxis at the time that the facilities were sampled.

We are recommending that no one continue with these antibiotics and certainly no one at these facilities where there were positive samples begin antibiotics at this point because of the very low risk of anthrax. There's also our feeling that based on the low risk that there's no need to close these facilities at this point.

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CARROLL: There are about 90 employees who work at these four facilities. Again, they were cleaned overnight and as you heard right there, there are no plans to close any of these four facilities -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So Jason, let me ask you a question about the workers. Have you had a chance to talk to them and are they banding together and wanting to keep their jobs and move past this or do they want to move on and take up another line of work?

CARROLL: Well, I can tell you we have heard from the postal union and they've been in contact with the employees. And according to them there is some concern, as you can imagine, about coming to work and working in this type of environment. At this point what they're doing is, though, they are just taking the advice from the health department and doing the best they can -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Jason Carroll live in Trenton, thanks so much.

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