NYC hospital worker preliminarily tests positive for anthrax

NEW YORK (AP) -- A 61-year-old hospital worker is "struggling for her survival" after preliminarily testing positive for the dangerous inhalation anthrax, the city health commissioner said Tuesday.

The source of the infection is not known. Some environmental samples from the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital have come back negative, while others are pending, and no one else is showing signs of the disease, said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

The cause of the infection was not immediately confirmed, but Giuliani said it was assumed to be anthrax.

Other hospitals in the city have been alerted "to take precautions ... and share their findings with us," Health Commissioner Neal Cohen said.

Dr. Steven Ostroff of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the case was troubling because it is the first in New York involving the inhalation form of the disease and because unlike all New York's other anthrax cases, "There's no clear linkage with the mail."

The woman started feeling ill on Thursday and entered the hospital on Sunday, authorities said. They were alerted to the case Monday and announced it late in the day.

"There was a rapid progression from Saturday to Sunday," Cohen said.

Cohen said antibiotics would be offered to anyone who might have encountered the woman dating back to Oct. 11, two weeks before the onset of her symptoms. The mayor said about 200 people work in the hospital and that hundreds if not thousands of patients had come through in that time.

Ana Negron, who had been to the hospital Friday for treatment of an eye injury, was worried that she might have been exposed, so she returned Tuesday to see if she should be tested.

"They asked me to go home and get in touch with my primary care physician," she said. "The fact that they turned me away -- I'm even more scared."

Giuliani said the ill woman worked in the hospital's supply room, which shared space or was close to the hospital's mail room. But there was "no indication of a letter yet" as the source of the anthrax, he said.

Jeanette Cruz, a systems analyst at the hospital, said each department has a slot in the mailroom and typically someone from the department picks up mail each day.

Giuliani said the woman couldn't be interviewed, so co-workers and others are being questioned "to create a history of what happened." The woman's home in the Bronx has been tested, and those tests also are pending.

New York City has been a focus of the anthrax investigation since an assistant to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw was infected earlier this month. The city has had four confirmed skin anthrax cases -- all at media outlets -- but none of the more-serious inhaled form.

In Florida, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., three people have died from inhaled anthrax, three others have confirmed cases, and one has recovered.

About 300 full-time employees work at the Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, which does not admit patients overnight. The hospital was closed to patients Tuesday, authorities said.

Dr. Philip Zetterstrand, who works at the hospital, stopped outside Tuesday morning before deciding to go inside.

"I was eating breakfast when I heard a short message saying 'Eye, Ear and Throat' on the TV," he said. "And I heard 'anthrax' and put the two together."

On Monday, a postal union filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service to force the closing of New York's biggest mail-sorting center for testing.

"We're simply asking the post office to close the building and make sure it's safe," William Smith, the union president said of the 2-million-square-foot Morgan Processing and Distribution Center. "Test everybody and tell us they haven't been exposed. If that's not done, we shouldn't be in that building."

The Postal Service announced that absenteeism there had climbed to nearly 30 percent since traces of anthrax were found on sorting machines.

Despite the anthrax difficulties, there have been only "minor, minor disruptions" of mail delivery, said David Solomon, regional vice president for operations for the Postal Service.

No postal employees in New York have come down with anthrax.

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Bioterrorism information: http://www.bt.cdc.gov