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US military accidentally shipped live Anthrax to nine labs US military accidentally shipped live anthrax to labs
(about 7 hours later)
The US military accidentally sent live Anthrax samples to as many as nine labs across the country. The US military accidentally sent live anthrax samples to as many as nine labs across the country and to a US military base in South Korea, the Pentagon says.
There were no public threats from the mishap, a defence official said on Wednesday. Twenty-two military personnel at the Osan Air Base in South Korea are receiving preventive treatment after being possibly exposed to the sample.
A US Defense Department laboratory in Utah had "inadvertently" shipped the samples to commercial labs. In the US, four civilians are receiving treatment - although they face a "minimal risk".
Government health authorities are testing the samples. All Anthrax samples are believed to be secured, and there are no known exposures. A Defence Department lab in Utah "inadvertently" shipped the samples.
Spokesman Col Steve Warren said the Defence Department is working with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get the samples, which were supposed to be dead or inactivated. The personnel at the South Korean base might have come into contact with the anthrax sample during a "training event", the US military said, but so far none had shown "any signs" of exposure.
The government has confirmed one shipment actually had live spores, and the eight others might, too. However, they were given "appropriate medical precautionary measures to include examinations, antibiotics and in some instances, vaccinations".
The live spores were shipped from Utah to labs in Texas, Maryland, Wisconsin, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York, California and Virginia. "The sample was destroyed in accordance with appropriate protocols," said Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren.
The base at Osan, 35km (21 miles) south of the capital Seoul, is home to the US Air Force 51st Fighter Wing.
Experts in biosafety say they are astonished by the lapse and called for greater precautions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has begun an investigation into the incident.
"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 Col Warren.
Samples involved in the investigation will be securely transferred to CDC or affiliated laboratories "for further testing", CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harden said.
Ms Harden said that the CDC has also sent officials to the labs "to conduct on-site investigations".
The latest incident comes nearly a year after the CDC, one of the government's foremost civilian laboratories, also mishandled anthrax, the Associated Press news agency reported.
It said that researchers at a laboratory set up to deal with extremely dangerous pathogens dispatched what they thought were "killed samples" of anthrax to another CDC facility.
But it did not have sufficient safeguards and was not equipped to work with live anthrax, AP reported, and several CDC employees were "potentially exposed" to live anthrax. However, none became ill.
The Defence Department spokesman said that the samples in the latest incident were supposed to be dead or deactivated.
The government has confirmed one shipment actually had live spores, and the eight others might also have done so.
The live spores were shipped from Utah to labs in Texas, Maryland, Wisconsin, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York, California and Virginia, as well as the air base in South Korea.