Anthrax alarm closes three mail facilities

Anthrax detection systems at two Pentagon mailrooms sounded alarms Monday, resulting in the evacuation of four buildings and the shutdown of the Postal Service's facility that handles government mail.

Initial overnight tests on the samples from the Pentagon's Remote Delivery Facility in Arlington, Va., turned up positive, according to officials at the Health and Human Services Department. Tests on a second set of samples from the Pentagon-leased Skyline office complex in Falls Church, Va., discovered hours after the first alarm sounded, are not yet complete.

The positive samples are being tested at the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., to determine whether the spores are capable of causing disease. Results from this type of test usually take 24 to 48 hours, but an HHS spokesman said results could be available later today.

The Skyline office complex, located at 5111 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church, Va., remains closed along with the Remote Delivery Facility, but county officials said the general public is not at risk of exposure. About 275 Defense Department workers were potentially affected and 209 postal workers.

Defense employees who might have come into contact with anthrax are being asked to provide nasal swabs and are being given a three-day regimen of antibiotics. Initial anthrax symptoms - which usually do not take effect for several days - include fever, sweats and chills.

HHS spokesman Bill Hall said the only material that shows the possible existence of anthrax spores is the material from the Pentagon's Remote Delivery Facility. Since all government mail is radiated to kill bacteria, the detection of anthrax does not necessarily mean that the anthrax was alive.

Mailroom bacteria sensors are designed to detect material that might or might not be dangerous, Hall said. More precise tests that examine the material's DNA structure proved that the material in the Remote Delivery Facility was anthrax.

"There's no identified piece of mail, no powder," Hall said. "All we have is the sensors going off."

Postal Service spokesman Gerry McKiernan said there was no evidence of anthrax yet at the now-closed USPS facility. Sensors at the facility that sends mail to the Pentagon did not go off. The Defense mail facilities also handle interoffice mail and packages from outside couriers.

"We don't know if it was a piece of mail that caused [the Pentagon sensors] to go off," McKiernan said. "Nothing is amiss and nobody is sick. We don't have any reason to believe anybody has been contaminated."

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, anthrax was deliberately spread throughout the U.S. postal system in letters, leading to 22 cases of infection and five deaths.

CDC spokesman Llelwyn Grant said the agency is consulting with the Postal Service on doing environmental sampling at the facility that handles government mail. They are also providing postal workers possibly exposed to anthrax with safety recommendations.

"Based on the information made available to the CDC, we feel that the risk to postal workers is low, but we can't say that there is zero risk," Grant said. "Based on this information we believe it is prudent to take precautionary steps."