US Army mistakenly sent anthrax around the country and to South Korea
US military sent lethal bacteria to nine states and overseas to South Korea
The US military mistakenly sent live anthrax bacteria to laboratories in nine states and a US air base in South Korea, after apparently failing to properly inactivate the bacteria last year, US officials said on Wednesday.
The Pentagon said there was no known suspected infection or risk to the public. But four US civilians have been started on preventive measures called post-exposure prophylaxis, which usually includes the anthrax vaccine, antibiotics or both.
Twenty-two personnel at the base in South Korea were also given precautionary medical measures although none had shown sign of exposure, the US military said. The four in the United States faced "minimal" risk, said Jason McDonald, a spokesman for the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has begun an investigation of the incident.
When anthrax becomes airborne, it can cause a deadly illness called inhalation anthrax. That occurred in 2001, when anthrax sent through the US mail to government and media targets killed five people.
The anthrax, which was initially sent from a Utah military lab, was meant to be shipped in an inactive state as part of efforts to develop a field-based test to identify biological threats, the Pentagon said.
"Out of an abundance of caution, [the Defence Department] has stopped the shipment of this material from its labs pending completion of the investigation," said Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren.
The CDC said it had launched an investigation of the mishap.
All samples involved in the investigation will be securely transferred to the CDC or affiliated labs for further testing.
The mishap comes 11 months after the CDC, one of the government's top civilian labs, similarly mishandled anthrax.
In the latest case, the army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah reported in March 2014 that gamma irradiation had inactivated the anthrax stock in question, and along with another army facility, began shipments that continued through April 2015.
The anthrax was sent to laboratories in Maryland, Texas, Wisconsin, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York, California and Virginia, officials said.
But the Maryland laboratory alerted the CDC late on Friday that its sample was alive and by midday on Saturday, the other laboratories were notified, the US official said.
The four civilians receiving post-exposure prophylaxis are in Delaware, Texas and Wisconsin.
"Workers who were not in the same area at the same time are not at risk," McDonald said.
