Live anthrax inadvertently shipped by Pentagon

USA’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating after the Pentagon inadvertently shipped live anthrax spores to government and commercial laboratories in as many as nine states, as well as one overseas, that expected to receive dead spores.”At this time we do not suspect any risk to the general public,” CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harben is reported to have said.

A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said the suspected live anthrax samples were shipped from Dugway Proving Ground, an Army facility in Utah, using a commercial delivery service.

Warren said the government has confirmed one recipient, a laboratory in Maryland, received live spores. It is suspected that anthrax sent to labs in as many as eight other states also contained live spores, he said though he refuse to “confirm” so. Later he said an anthrax sample from the same batch at Dugway also was sent to a U.S. military laboratory at Osan air base in South Korea; no personnel there have shown signs of exposure, he said, and the sample was destroyed.

“There is no known risk to the general public, and there are no suspected or confirmed cases of anthrax infection in potentially exposed lab workers,” Warren has been quoted by media in US.

A U.S. official said that four people in three commercial labs had worked with the suspect anthrax samples and the CDC has recommended the four be provided “post-exposure prophylaxis,” or preventive treatment. The official was not authorized to discuss the details because they involved non-government lab employees, and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The anthrax samples were shipped from Dugway to government and commercial labs in Texas, Maryland, Wisconsin, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York, California and Virginia.