|
Elderly Woman Infected With Inhalation Anthrax Dies
NEW YORK, Nov 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A 94-year-old woman stricken with inhalation anthrax died in hospital Wednesday, hospital president Patrick Charmel announced, bringing the total of anthrax deaths to five.
Officials announced late Tuesday that Ottilie Lundgren, of rural Oxford, Connecticut, had been infected with the often-fatal bacteria, although it was still a mystery where the woman, who largely stayed at home, contracted the disease.
Her death in Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut, marks the fifth from inhalation anthrax in recent weeks in the United States. Thirteen others have been infected with the less-serious skin form of the infection.
Lundren's exposure posed a new mystery in efforts to track down the source of the deadly spores that have turned up in four U.S. states and the capital, Washington D.C., infecting 18 people.
Lundgren, 94, reportedly rarely left her home in the rural town of Oxford, Connecticut, except to go to the hairdresser, and, like New Yorker Kathy Nguyen who died of inhalation anthrax last month, has no obvious links to media or political figures who have been sent anthrax-laced letters.
Connecticut Governor John Rowland told a news conference that investigators were trying to "trace the whereabouts of the woman over the past several weeks.
"Granted at her age she has not traveled a great deal, so that's why the suspicions lead directly to the possibility of mail cross-contamination of some sort," he said.
"This is all new territory for everyone in this field, and we don't know much," the governor said.
Most of the 18 cases of inhalation anthrax or the less deadly cutaneous form of the disease confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) since early October have involved people with ties to the U.S. Postal Service, the government or media figures.
Of the 11 cases of inhalation anthrax, five victims - including Lundgren - have died, while another seven people have contracted the less severe skin infection.
Rowland noted the comparison with Nguyen, who died of the extremely rare inhalation anthrax on October 31.
The Vietnamese immigrant, who was 61, also lived alone, and investigators were at a loss to retrace any steps that would link her with others infected with inhalation anthrax or the less deadly skin anthrax.
"That source is unknown as well," Rowland said, adding: "So perhaps the FBI can catch together this information. ... I'm sure they're comparing information from both cases, and hopefully they'll come up with a source."
Nguyen worked in a basement storeroom of the hospital near a mailroom, but there was no evidence she handled any mail and no traces of anthrax were found on her clothes, at her workplace, at her home or on the subway line she rode to Chinatown to a specialty food store.
"Pretty much anything is possible," Rowland said, adding that 1,500 postal employees have been tested for anthrax at two postal facilities in Connecticut, a small, northeastern state.
Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts said Tuesday that limited amounts of anthrax bacteria had been found during tests carried out over the weekend in the Russell Senate Office Building, next to the Capitol, where the U.S. Congress convenes.
"A very small trace of anthrax" was found in Kennedy's office mail room, according to a statement from the lawmaker, citing the chief physician at the Capitol.
"The Capitol physician has determined that the amount is negligible and that it poses no public safety or health risk," the statement added.
According to television reports, the office of Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut - also in the Russell building - also showed traces of the bacteria.
Authorities on Friday revealed that another letter suspected of containing anthrax had been found in the office of Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee.
That letter, posted on October 9, was found among 250 barrels of mail sent to Congress and set aside after an anthrax-laden letter arrived at the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle on October 15.
Regarding the new discoveries, Capitol Police spokesman Dan Nichols said, "This is an isolated situation," attributing them to "cross-contamination with the Daschle letter and possibly the Leahy letter."
Tests are still in progress, but the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation indicated that the Leahy letter was postmarked in Trenton, New Jersey, and was similar to three other contaminated letters now in police possession.
It is believed that the anthrax attacks are home-grown and the FBI released a profile earlier this month outlining that the attacker is most likely to be from the U.S., male and a loner. The Administration has stated that they do not believe the bio-terrorism attacks are linked to the attacks on September 11.
|
