Kenya Reports Anthrax, Russia Defends Labs
A family in
Kenya has tested positive for anthrax infection; it was reported, marking
the first African country to report a case of the infection, which has
spread to five people in the United States.
Meanwhile,
a Russian health official said there was little chance the anthrax used
in the United States cases came from Russian laboratories and a Russian
decision to ban meat products from Florida was deemed unjustified by state
agriculture officials.
The Florida
ban was directly linked to the anthrax discovered at a tabloid publisher
in Boca Raton, which has resulted in the death of one person.
In the Kenyan
capital of Nairobi, the Minister of Health, Som Ongeri, said a medical
doctor in Nairobi and four of his family members received a letter post
marked Atlanta, which contained a white powder. The letter was opened on
Oct. 11.
Ongeri said
the five people were "not in danger."
Kenya is one
of the key nations in the current U.S campaign against global terrorism
and a U.S. embassy in Nairobi was attacked by terrorists using a truck
bomb in August 1998, killing 213 people.
The four men
convicted in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa, including the
one in Nairobi, received life sentences in New York today. Attorney General
John Ashcroft in an afternoon press conference praised the sentences, calling
it proof that Osama bin Laden's al Qaida organization, with which the men
were linked, had targeted American citizens.
He added, however,
it might not be appropriate to think in "either/or" terms about whether
domestic or international terrorists were behind the anthrax letters.
"It might well
be we have opportunists in the U.S. or terrorists acting in ways that are
unrelated," citing the arrest of several people for alleged hoax threats
as a sign that individuals could be acting from their own motives.
Ashcroft said
the threat still exists. "We still believe we have a threat environment
in the United States that should cause Americans to be alert."
With regard
to the ban on Florida meat, Florida Department of Agriculture spokesman
Terry McElroy said, "There is no evidence the food supply has been compromised
or tainted in any way. Evidently their concern involves anthrax. There
has not been any anthrax outbreak among livestock in Florida since 1951."
McElroy said
the ban covers all products shipped from Florida, which is a shipping point
for locations outside the state and most of the products shipped to Russia
originate elsewhere.
He said the
U.S. Department of Agriculture is working on the problem. Florida ranks
10th in the United States for number of beef cattle, but most calves are
shipped to the Midwest for fattening and slaughter.
The Russian
news agency Interfax reported Thursday Russia's Health Ministry said it
was not the country of origin for the current anthrax outbreak in the United
States. Yuriy Fedorov, Russian health minister, said it would be "practically
impossible" for someone to obtain anthrax from Russian labs because of
the tight security.
"Test tubes
with such substances are sealed and stored with the greatest of precautions,"
he said. "Special log books are being kept to record the issue of the tubes
brought from the storage facilities to the laboratory tables where they
are being worked with at the start of the day and their return at the end
of the day. The number of Petri dishes used during the work is also registered,
so even assuming that any member of staff harbors evil intentions, he will
be unable to put it into practice."
Fedorov said
in the 20 years he has been with the office there has not been a single
instance of a test tube disappearing.
The Croatian
news agency HINA said Thursday suspicious postal parcels tested for anthrax
have shown no trace of the pathogen so far, but additional microbiological
tests continued. The Croatian Public Health Institute formed a headquarters
for the prevention, early discovery and fighting of infectious epidemics
and to carry out of epidemiological proceedings in case of a terrorist
attack with biological weaponry.
Slovak commercial
station Radio Twist on Thursday said while a growing number of countries
have decided to adopt amendments to their penal codes regarding bioterrorism
threats, Slovakia's legal system currently does not make it possible to
bring criminal charges against people accused of sending suspicious letters.
The Christian Democratic Movement, however, has drafted an amendment to
the Slovak Penal Code that would make it possible to pursue anthrax hoaxes
as criminal offenses under scaremongering charges.
In Canada,
where no anthrax has been reported, Health Minister Allan Rock said Thursday
the government would spend $7 million (CDN $11 million) to meet the bioterrorism
threat, according to Canadian Press.
He said half
of the money will go toward buying enough antibiotics to treat 100,000
people, not only for anthrax, but for other diseases as well. The rest
of the money will be used to train emergency workers, for improving laboratories
that handle biological agents, and for equipment to detect them.
He said Canada
had enough drugs to treat 40,000 people now and had been planning to increase
that number even before the Sept. 11 attacks.
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Copyright 2001 by United
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