Anthrax shut down the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, after 31 Senate staff members tested positive for exposure to the substance. A string of hoaxes worldwide reached Sweden, meanwhile, where tests on Thursday showed that a powder sent to government offices contained no anthrax, said reports.
The anthrax threat appeared to be most serious in the US, where the discovery of exposure among Senate staff members took place alongside revelations from the governor of New York that traces of the deadly bacteria was also found in his office, according to AFP.
The US House of Representatives shut down early for the weekend Wednesday after the Senate cases were discovered.
While the contamination appeared restricted to a Senate office building, according to the agency, House leaders shut down until Tuesday while authorities searched Capitol Hill - where both houses hold sessions - for traces of the deadly bacteria.
Senators vowed to keep working despite the attack.
"The message was to tell the Senate leadership, 'You're not immune to terrorism, that we know who you are and we know how to get to you,' " Senator Richard Shelby, vice chairman of the Senate select committee on intelligence, told the Washington Post newspaper.
"There is a return message. We are going to track you down, and we're going to find where you are and when we do, we're not going to let you destroy us. We're going to destroy you."
Most of those exposed to the bacteria worked in the offices of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, where an anthrax-laced letter was found Monday. The others were congressional police officers and three staffers from Democratic Senator Russell Feingold's office.
Meanwhile, New York Governor George Pataki said evidence of anthrax was found at his Manhattan offices.
In all, 44 cases of anthrax exposure, one of them fatal, have been reported in Florida, New York and Washington, according to AFP.
NEW DATA EMERGES ON ANTHRAX
Lawmakers said the powder found in Daschle's offices was very finely ground, something experts told AFP was difficult to do without killing off the bacteria.
This would indicate the people behind the anthrax attacks have "a high level of technical sophistication or had contact with a group that had technical sophistication," Michael Powers of the Chemical and Biological Arms Institute told the agency. An expert who tested the bacteria found at Daschle's office said it was a common strain.
"It's common variety from all our testing at this point in time," said General Jon Parker, who heads the US Army's medical research and material command, which examined anthrax spores.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller said earlier that there were similarities between the contaminated letter sent to Daschle and one sent to NBC television anchor Tom Brokaw in New York. Both had similar handwriting on the envelopes and were postmarked in Trenton, New Jersey, added AFP.
Meanwhile, CNN reported Wednesday that the strain of anthrax found in the threatening letter sent to NBC is the same as that identified in employees of a Florida publisher.
SWEDEN LATEST ANTHRAX HOAX VICTIM AROUND GLOBE
Initial tests on an unidentified white powder found in a letter sent to Swedish government offices showed no traces of anthrax, the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control said Thursday, cited by AFP.
Definitive results from the a defense agency were expected later Thursday.
The letter, which according to the Swedish news agency TT was addressed to Prime Minister Goran Persson and Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, was discovered and handed over to police on Wednesday, said the agency.
A government spokesman said employees in the mail room in the central government office Rosenbad had discovered the suspect letter.
Swedish police said Wednesday more than 20 suspect letters and packages were being investigated in the Scandinavian country alone, according to AFP.
As anthrax infection cases continue to make headlines in the US, countries from Finland to Australia have been gripped by a string of hoaxes and panic in connection with the deadly bacteria.
In the US, the FBI said it had received more than 2,300 reports of suspected anthrax contamination since October 1, with most of these proving to be false, according to the San Diego Daily.
Prominent US figures have been targeted, in addition to the first known attack on the Florida tabloid company, American Media, that saw one man die of his infection. Last Friday, according to Time magazine, authorities reported that one of Tom Brokaw's assistants on the NBC Nightly News had developed a form of anthrax as well, possibly delivered by mail, and that Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter, had also received a laced letter. Computer titan Microsoft was also targeted.
Elsewhere in the world, Australia was gripped by panic earlier this week as anthrax scares hit five cities, presenting dozens of people with a harrowing wait for test results to clear them of possible infection, according to The Nation newspaper.
However, these cases have largely been revealed as hoaxes. Australian Prime Minster John Howard said Tuesday that the emergencies declared at two consulates, a newspaper office, the Australian Taxation Office, an airport and a university resulted from deliberate false alarms.
Meanwhile, a suspect package delivered to the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday had no traces of anthrax, the department of health said, after 13 people were taken to a hospital as a precautionary measure.
AP said that British police had received several anthrax-related hoaxes and had warned Britons to be on their guard and watch their mail carefully.
A Scotland Yard spokesman the package had been removed and tested and found to be harmless. He refused to say whether there were substances inside the packages but said the tests were negative, adding: “There was nothing harmful.''
The Royal London Hospital Whitechapel said the 13 people from the exchange were decontaminated before they arrived and they were given antibiotic ciprofloxacin, as a precautionary measure, according to the agency.
According to Reuters, concern over anthrax spread on Monday to Canada's Parliament and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's office in Berlin as well as to France, Switzerland, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, New Zealand and Israel, where letters and suspicious powder were discovered – Albawaba.com
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