Anthrax Scare Spreads to South Jersey

BELLMAWR, NJ: Postal and health officials plan to open mobile laboratories where 1,300 Camden County postal employees can be tested for anthrax now that a mail handler at the Bellmawr facility contracted the skin form of the disease. Inside the giant Bellmawr postal facility the FBI was testing for possible anthrax contamination both on the production floor and the public lobby on Wednesday. Next door, South Jersey and Delaware postal workers adjust to the new reality of standing in line to be medically screened and given the drug Cipro if they want it.

Bellmawr was shut down at noon after a worker inside, a 54-year-old Wilmington man, was listed by officials as a suspected case of skin Anthrax. He noticed a lesion on October 17th. Mail processed in Bellmawr goes directly to more than one million South Jersey and Delaware addresses via 234 local post offices. Congressman Rob Andrews says it is to early to say if this suspected case is linked to the known hot spots in Trenton. In all 8,000 workers who work inside and out are eligible to be tested. Officials confirm some workers anxious about Anthrax went to their own doctors earlier this week and are taking medication.

The medical screenings are expected to last several days. As for mail delivery, some of the mail, mostly bulk, has been left inside and will remain there as long as there is testing going on. Most first class mail has been diverted to other facilities, and the expectation is that it will be delivered on time.

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Author: 6 ABC - Action News