N.J. Anthrax Patient Released

TRENTON, N.J.: Officials asked New Jersey residents not to panic after a woman who works at a business near an anthrax-tainted post office became the first person in the state infected who is not a postal worker. The 51-year-old Hamilton Township resident has been successfully treated and released from the hospital, state officials said Monday as they announced that 44 other New Jersey post offices would be tested for the bacteria.

"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."

Environmental tests were planned at the home and office of the woman, who does not remember opening any suspicious mail.

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.

A female postal worker at the Hamilton processing center remains hospitalized with the state's only confirmed case of inhalation anthrax, the most serious form of the disease. She has been listed as improving at Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mount Holly.

A second postal worker with a suspected case of inhalation anthrax has been released from a hospital.

Another employee at the Hamilton processing center and a letter carrier who delivered mail in Ewing have contracted confirmed cases of skin anthrax. A third postal worker at the Hamilton center was treated for a suspected case.

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.

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.

Also on Monday, the FBI prepared a new terrorism warning asking Americans and law enforcement to be on the highest alert for possible new attacks this week in the United States and abroad, government officials said.

New Jersey received that warning Monday afternoon, DiFrancesco said.

"In New Jersey, we're already at that level now. We've deployed the National Guard to wherever we think is at risk," DiFrancesco said. "We've got state police everywhere. We are at that level."

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

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Author: 6 - ABC, Action News