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Texas Lab Worker Infected with Anthrax, CDC Says
Mar 13 12:08pm ET
By Paul Simao
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A Texas laboratory worker who had been testing specimens collected during last year's anthrax outbreak has himself come down with the potentially fatal bacteria, the first person to do so this year, U.S. health experts said on Wednesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the unidentified worker became infected with the less serious cutaneous, or skin, form of anthrax.
Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based CDC, said it was still not known exactly how the worker got anthrax.
"We sent a team there last week to do an assessment to try to figure that out," Skinner said.
The CDC said the worker, who went to his doctor on March 4 after noticing an unusual lesion on his neck, was being treated with antibiotics and was expected to make a full recovery.
Skinner said there were no indications that others in the Texas lab, which the CDC did not identify, had been exposed to the bacteria. He added that the infection did not indicate that any new letters contaminated with anthrax had been circulated.
Five people died and 13 others became infected with anthrax last year during an outbreak linked to mail delivered in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
The last case, that of a 94-year-old Connecticut woman, was reported on Nov. 20. The woman died of inhalational anthrax, the most serious form of the disease, the next day.
The CDC, which was in the forefront of the battle to respond to the outbreak, has contracted with a number of private laboratories to process a backlog of specimens collected during the height of the scare.
Tens of thousands of environmental swabs were taken from buildings and other sites potentially exposed during the outbreak. Each is being tested for the presence of the bacteria.
The unidentified Texas lab is not part of the CDC's Laboratory Response Network, which consists of more than 100 facilities around the country that help the agency during public health emergencies. |
