Officials offer anthrax vaccine and antibiotics to those at risk

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Federal health officials said Tuesday they would offer experimental anthrax vaccine and an extra 40 days of antibiotics to thousands of Capitol Hill, media and postal workers in case any anthrax still lurks in their lungs.

But they expect only a small fraction of those people, who already were given two months of antibiotics for possible exposure to anthrax during the attacks-by-mail, to accept any of the precautionary extra treatment.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said workers will have to decide for themselves, in consultation with their doctors, whether to take extra antibiotics or get the vaccination.

The risk of getting anthrax after the standard two months of antibiotics is "very mild, minor," stressed Dr. D.A. Henderson, the government’s top bioterrorism adviser. "It is not zero, however."

Anthrax is inhaled in a dormant spore form. People get sick when those spores germinate deep in the lungs, letting the bacteria break out and multiply. Antibiotics kill bacteria, not the spores. So if a spore germinates after antibiotics are stopped, someone could get sick.

Some animal studies suggest that’s a possibility. In one study, 1 percent of the anthrax spores monkeys inhaled still lurked in their lungs 75 days later, and in another a monkey died 98 days after spore inhalation.

The government has confirmed 18 cases of anthrax — 11 in inhaled form and seven skin infections — since the bioterror attack began in October. No new cases have been reported since a 94-year-old Connecticut woman died Nov. 21, the fifth death from the attacks.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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