N.J. Anthrax Source Search Continues

TRENTON, N.J. October 30th, 2001: Health officials took environmental samples Tuesday morning at an accounting firm where a 51-year-old employee became the first New Jersey anthrax victim outside the Postal Service.

The Hamilton Township woman - an accountant at Civale, Sylvestri and Alfieri - has been successfully treated and released from the hospital, state officials said. She is on antibiotics and doing well.

Environmental samples were also planned at the home of the woman, who does not remember opening any suspicious mail.

"She didn't open everyone's mail," said James Alfieri, a partner at the firm. Alfieri said the woman opened mail addressed to her and occasionally mail for her clients and others in the office, which is in the same complex as an office for U.S. Rep. Chris Smith.

"I talked to her last night. She's doing really well and is sorry for all the commotion," he said.

Forty-four other New Jersey post offices that feed into the Hamilton office where at least three anthrax-tainted letters were postmarked were expected to be tested for the bacteria in coming days. "I would ask that people remain calm and vigilant," said Acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco. "Only a handful of New Jersey's more than eight million people have been diagnosed with this disease."

Federal health officials said the source of the anthrax that sickened her is not known.

"I don't think it appropriate to draw conclusions about what this latest case may imply," said Dr. Stephen Ostroff, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control.

Officials acknowledged that cross contamination of mail is a possibility, but said the investigation was looking into other possibilities of the infection's source as well.

The woman is the sixth case connected to New Jersey of known or suspected anthrax. Four other cases involved workers at Hamilton's regional mail center, which tested positive for anthrax in several locations, and a fifth involved a letter carrier from nearby Ewing.

DiFrancesco on Monday ordered environmental testing for anthrax spores at 44 post offices in seven counties that send mail to the regional processing center in Hamilton; some have already been tested. Officials said the offices will remain open during testing.

The decision for additional testing was not done in response to the newest anthrax case, U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli said, but rather because some postal employees felt they were being treated differently than congressional staff members in Washington, D.C., who have had antibiotics made available to them.

"There will be no contrast," Torricelli said. "This will be done equitably."

The Hamilton processing center, which cancels mail with a Trenton postmark, is the source of at least three anthrax-tainted letters sent to U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle's office in Washington, NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post.

Nineteen of 59 environmental tests at the Hamilton center tested positive for anthrax, and at least one test at a postal facility in West Windsor has also been positive for the bacteria. None of the tests at the post office in Ewing were positive.

Residents will understand that they should not be alarmed by news of this latest case of anthrax, the acting governor said.

"I don't think people are going to freak out. I think people are going to suspect that this is in some way related to the Hamilton post office and that they are not involved," DiFrancesco said Monday.

Officials said the woman developed a lesion on her forehead on Oct. 17. A biopsy was taken Oct. 24, and the woman was released from the hospital Sunday. Officials received biopsy results Monday.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Author: 6 ABC - Action News