Anthrax anxiety rippled across the world yesterday, with suspicious incidents reported from Brazil to Japan, as the number of people in the US exposed to the potentially deadly germ rose to at least 12.
US President George W. Bush pointed the finger of suspicion at Osama bin Laden after a powdery substance, found in a letter sent to a top US senator, tested positive for anthrax on Monday.
A seven-month-old baby boy, the child of an ABC news employee tested positive for skin anthrax but responded well to treatment, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told a news conference.
A second employee at a Florida publishing firm tested positive for the deadly inhaled form of anthrax, as investigators found miniscule amounts of the bacteria's spores at the main post office in Boca Raton, Florida health officials said.
Ernesto Blanco, 73, had contracted the same disease that killed his colleague, Bob Stevens, a photo editor at the Sun, a tabloid published by American Meida Inc in Boca Raton.
12 exposed
US authorities have confirmed the presence of anthrax in Florida, New York and Nevada and say a total of at least 12 people, aside from Stevens, have been exposed to the bacterial disease, spread by spores and usually confined to livestock.
President Bush said on Monday he "wouldn't put it past" Osama bin Laden to have launched such attacks.
The Saudi-born militant is the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 suicide plane hijackings that killed more than 5,000 people in crashes at New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a rural area near Pittsburgh.
"There may be some possible link. We have no hard data yet but it's clear that Mr. bin Laden is an evil man," Bush said as he met Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. "I wouldn't put it past him, but we don't have hard evidence yet."
The FBI is investigating the movements of several hijacking suspects in south Florida, including an apartment in Delray, just north of Boca Raton, rented by Hamza Alghamdi, suspected in the hijacking of the second jet that struck the World Trade Center.
In two preliminary field tests, a letter sent to the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota came up positive for the bacteria. A more definite exam was being conducted at a US army facility.
Precautionary measures
As a precautionary measure, about 40 to 50 people, mostly staffers in the office along with some US Capitol police and mail handlers, were treated with antibiotics and the senator's office was quarantined as the FBI and police investigated.
Public tours of Capitol Hill were canceled indefinitely and authorities directed congressional staffers not to open any mail before it has been screened.
Daschle is the first top government official directly affected by the anthrax scare.
A rash of suspicious incidents were reported across the world, including France, Switzerland, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Israel.
But the US remained the only country with confirmed cases.
Parts of Canada's parliament were sealed off on Monday after two separate incidents in which women reported rashes after handling a magazine and an envelope, but there was no immediate indication of anthrax.
In Paris, police evacuated four buildings and sent 55 people for medical tests after suspect powder was sent to various addresses.
In Berlin, officials sealed off the mailroom at Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder's city center office after workers found white powder seeping out of a package.
Similar scares were reported from towns as far apart as Gibralter in southern Europe and Zwaag in the Netherlands.
Israeli experts carried out tests on a white powder found on an El Al plane.
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