22 people possibly exposed to live anthrax at South Korean base
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Seoul (dpa) - Twenty-two people in South Korea were being treated with antibiotics Friday after a US Defence Department lab mistakenly sent a live anthrax sample to a military base near the capital Seoul,US media reports said.
The people "may have been exposed during the training event" at Osan Air Base, the reports said, quoting a statement from the base.
Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said he did not think there was a risk to the general public.
There are no suspected or confirmed cases of anthrax infections in potentially exposed lab workers, he said.
The lab in Dugway in the state of Utah sent the deadly substance to Osan Air Base, situated south of Seoul, as well as to 17 other labs in nine US states, the news reports said.
General Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told reporters Thursday the anthrax bacteria may not have been treated properly before being sent out.
The process "might not have completely killed" the bacteria in this case, he said, according to the Military Times.
Anthrax bacteria can be killed in a number of ways, including irradiation - which is used for some government mail in the United States - or with anti-bacterial chemicals.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what went wrong at the Dugway base.
The general said normal procedures had been followed.
"The best I can tell, it was not human error," he said.
"The sample was destroyed in accordance with appropriate protocols" once the error had been discovered, Warren said.
He said the lab's work was part of research to come up with field-based tests to identify biological threats to the environment.
