ANTHRAX HELL OVER ..FOR NOW; But fresh scares possible.THE anthrax scare is over, US health officials said yesterday. They said the batch of spores in circulation was unlikely to infect anyone else. But they warned another wave of attacks could come at any time. Dr Anthony Fauci, of the National Institutes of Health, said: "For this episode, we're out of the woods. "It is very unlikely, though not impossible, that you will see late cases. Do I think it will happen in significant numbers? No. "I think they could have done a lot worse." Four people have died and there have been 17 confirmed cases of anthrax contamination in the US over the last month. In the attack, the spores were sent through the mail. But Dr Donald Henderson, the US Government's top bio-terrorism adviser, admitted what might happen next is "anyone's guess". Fauci said next time the spores might be spread through a different method. He added: "It's critical we remain on alert and certainly we all are. "It's not unreasonable to assume that the people who have this material and have attacked us with letters might try a different modality." FBI officers have been sharply criticised by senators for their lack of progress in tracing the source of the anthrax. Yesterday, James Caruso, a counter- terrorism official at the FBI, admitted the death of New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of hospital worker Kathy Nguyen was still a mystery. Her case is the only one not linked to the mail service. Caruso told a Senate panel: "We do not believe the anthrax samples were stolen or misplaced mis·place tr.v. mis·placed, mis·plac·ing, mis·plac·es 1. a. To put into a wrong place: misplace punctuation in a sentence. b. from a registered laboratory." As the scare calmed, preparations were made to start moving mountains of mail addressed to government agencies that have piled up since an anthrax-tainted letter arrived at Senate leader Tom Daschle's office on October 15. Washington officials also announced they were abandoning a plan to pump chlorine dioxide chlorine dioxide, n an oxidizing agent used in oral care to decrease amounts of volatile sulfur compounds that may cause halitosis. gas into the Hart Senate Office Building The Hart Senate Office Building, the third U.S. Senate office building, was built in the 1970s. First occupied in November 1982, the Hart Building is the largest of the Senate office buildings. It is named for Philip A. Hart, long-time senator from Michigan. . They instead decided to use the gas only in the offices of Daschle and Senator Russ Feingold and in the building's ventilation system ventilation system Public health An air system designed to maintain negative pressure and exhaust air properly, to minimize the spread of TB and other respiratory pathogens in a health care facility . Yesterday, a US-made quick test to recognise anthrax bacteria was unveiled at an exhibition in Budapest, Hungary. The suspect powder is mixed into a solution and dropped on a testing pad. It takes just 15 minutes for a result. Scientists, meanwhile, are trying to develop drugs which fight bioweapons like anthrax by temporarily boosting the immune system immune system Cells, cell products, organs, and structures of the body involved in the detection and destruction of foreign invaders, such as bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells. Immunity is based on the system's ability to launch a defense against such invaders. . The drugs trigger an immune response immune response n. An integrated bodily response to an antigen, especially one mediated by lymphocytes and involving recognition of antigens by specific antibodies or previously sensitized lymphocytes. that limits a bug's early growth and reproduction. It is hoped they could be used to protect against anthrax, the ebola virus and listeria Listeria /Lis·te·ria/ (lis-ter´e-ah) a genus of gram-negative bacteria (family Corynebacterium); L. monocyto´genes causes listeriosis. Lis·te·ri·a n. . |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion