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New York hospital worker dies after contracting anthrax

A 61-year-old Manhattan hospital worker has died from inhalational anthrax, the fourth victim from the disease in America this month, ABC News reported on yesterday.

The 61-year-old woman worked in a storage supply room in the basement of the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital which until a few days ago was housed with the mailroom.

No suspicious letter has been found and authorities have not found any traces of anthrax where she worked.

The hospital was closed at least for the day, as results were awaited from the environmental samples taken in the areas where the woman had worked or was likely to have passed through.

Ten of some 40 samples taken at the hospital have returned negative. Results from the remaining samples, as well as from samples taken at the woman's Bronx home, have not yet been released.

All staff, patients and visitors who have spent at least an hour at the hospital since Oct. 11, two weeks before the patient first began showing symptoms, were urged to go to nearby Lennox Hill Hospital to collect antibiotics as a precautionary measure.

Officials estimated some 2,000 people should respond to the advice.

Steve Ostroff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that the new case was of particular concern "because it doesn't fit the pattern" of links to postal workers, politicians or the news media in the bioterror attack that has hit the US, claiming three lives to date.

A possible link, however, is that the woman worked in a basement supply room that was "jointly housed with the mail room up until a few days ago," New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said.

He added, however, that "there's no indication of a [contaminated] letter yet."

Three postal workers are infected in New Jersey. It is possible that they were infected after handling anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and the New York Post.

Since the anthrax scare started with the October 5 death of a photo editor in Florida, two postal workers in Washington have died and another 12 people have been confirmed infected with the disease.

Traces of anthrax have also been found at the main post office in West Palm Beach, Florida, authorities said Tuesday.

The discovery brings to five the number of post offices in the southeastern state where anthrax spores have been found.
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