NEW DELHI, 21 October — Employees at four international mail offices will be given masks and gloves to combat the threat of anthrax, officials said yesterday, as a scare over the disease spread across the country.
The four foreign mail centers — in New Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta — will also be equipped with laboratories and X-ray machines to test or screen any suspect letters or packages, said Communications Minister Pramod Mahajan.
“We will create lab infrastructure at the four foreign post offices where postal personnel handling the international mail will be given protective masks and gloves,” said Mahajan, quoted by Press Trust of India (PTI). Mahajan stressed the measures were a precaution and said he had also asked courier companies to be careful.
He said the government was planning a public awareness campaign in the coming days, with print and television advertisements giving tips about how to tackle anthrax infection.
Meanwhile, the anthrax scare in the country was spreading fast with reports of people receiving “suspicious white powder” coming in from different parts of the country. A police official in Barabanki in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh said he had received an envelope with some “white powder.”
“I immediately sent the envelope to Lucknow, where they said there was no scope of investigation,” said Sriram Tripathi, superintendent of police in Barabanki.
“The envelope will now be sent to Delhi for investigation,” he said.
A PTI report from the eastern state of West Bengal said panic gripped residents of Murshidabad district when an envelope containing 25 grams of white powder was discovered inside a post box.
The envelope, which bore no address or stamps, was also sent for testing. Another packet with a “white powdery substance” was found at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Calcutta on Friday, PTI said. A report from adjoining Orissa state said two girls fainted in Tulsipur village when they opened an envelope and smelt some white powder. The letter and its contents have been sent for analysis, a police official said.
Newspapers yesterday said seven cases of possible anthrax-laced mail had been reported in Delhi.
In the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, police said they had sent four packets to the Veterinary Biological Research Institute after they were found to contain a white powder.
One packet had been mailed from Canada to Christian group in Hyderabad while another was mailed from the southern city of Madras to a local resident, Police Commissioner P. Ramulu said yesterday.
Three jewelers in the coastal city of Vijayawada also received mail which contained a white powder and a letter that threatened them to be prepared for an anthrax attack, police said.
Two suspicious letters delivered to police chief of Gwalior and vice chancellor of the university there, on examination by defense research and development laboratory were found to be carrying chalk powder. “It will take two to three days to find out whether the parcels contained anthrax or it was an act of mischief by those who wanted to create panic among people,” a police official said.
Anthrax, once a disease of animals, is spread by spores. Without quick antibiotic treatment, more than 80 percent of people who become ill after inhaling the spores die. There has been a worldwide scare that the deadly bacteria was being used as a biological weapon. Eight people have been diagnosed with anthrax in the United States, one of whom has died, and many others have been exposed to the bacteria.
There are fears anthrax is being spread in retaliation for US-led raids against Osama Bin Laden, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks In New York and Washington, and the Taleban movement in Afghanistan, accused of harboring him.
