WASHINGTON (KRT) ­ A Washington, D.C., postal worker was in serious but stable condition Sunday after being diagnosed with a pulmonary infection caused by inhaled anthrax, adding a ninth victim to the roster of confirmed cases.
Law enforcement officials intensified their search Sunday for the source of the deadly germ as more than 2,000 postal workers in and around the nation’s capital were encouraged to seek testing for anthrax exposure.
In the latest case, the man worked in a postal facility that handles mail addressed to congressional offices, prompting speculation that he might have been infected by an anthrax-tainted letter opened last Monday in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Congressional leaders decided Sunday to return to work as planned on Tuesday. The Capitol will be open Monday, but nearby congressional offices will remain closed as investigators await the results from environmental tests of 19 congressional buildings.
So far, nine people in Florida, New York, New Jersey and now Washington have fallen ill from anthrax exposure, three of them with the more-dangerous pulmonary version. The list of victims illustrates the insidious nature of the attacks, which in every case has failed to infect the apparent intended target, such as NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw. Instead, most victims have been mail handlers or staff aides. The anthrax has claimed only one life, that of Robert Stevens, a photo editor at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla.
Officials would not release the name of the latest victim, the first in the nation’s capital.
The U.S. Postal Service immediately closed the city’s central mail-processing center where the infected employee worked. Officials also closed a Maryland airmail-processing facility near Baltimore-Washington International Airport, which the employee frequented.
Anthrax screenings for about 2,200 postal employees from both locations began Sunday at a city government building and will continue Monday at District of Columbia General Hospital. Those employees will each be given a 10-day supply of the antibiotic Cipro until results of their nasal swab tests are confirmed.
The stricken employee went to the hospital on Friday complaining of a fever, chest pains and similar flu-like symptoms. When hospital personnel learned he was a postal worker, the man was tested for anthrax, admitted to the hospital and immediately placed on antibiotics.
On Sunday the test results confirmed the man had inhaled anthrax spores. The prognosis for a person with inhaled anthrax is “not great,” said Dr. Anne Peterson, Virginia Health Commissioner.
In and around the U.S. Capitol on Sunday, officials continued scouring for evidence of anthrax in congressional buildings; a letter opened last Monday in Daschle’s offices had sent anthrax spores into the air. Twenty-two congressional aides and six police officers were exposed to the anthrax in that letter, though none have shown evidence of infection.
Up to 5,000 people on Capitol Hill have been tested for exposure to anthrax since the Daschle letter was discovered.
Four locations near the Capitol have tested positive for anthrax. They include the area around Daschle’s two-floor office suite in the Hart Office Building; the mail-handling facility in the Dirksen Office building next door; a Capitol police mail-intake facility that examines congressional mail about 15 blocks from the Capitol; and the Ford Office Building, which sorts mail for the House of Representatives.
Authorities remained at a loss to explain how the anthrax traces got inside the Ford Office Building or in the mail facility.
“We’re not at a point where we can render an opinion as to whether there is cross-contamination” from the Daschle letter, said Lt. Dan Nichols, the Capitol police spokesman.