U.S. Embassy Staff to Get Antibiotics

Employees of the U.S. Embassy in Lithuania will be given precautionary antibiotics after a laboratory confirmed Thursday that at least one of the embassy’s mail pouches had been contaminated with anthrax, an embassy spokesman said.

Tests on the empty mailbag came back positive, the first proven case of anthrax contamination from the United States being spread to Europe. But no embassy employees in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, have exhibited signs of contracting any form of the disease, the spokesman said.

“We are 100% sure that we are dealing with anthrax here,” said Stanislovas Tarbunas, deputy director of the Lithuanian Public Health Center, who called the finding by its laboratory “extremely alarming.”

Tarbunas ruled out any mistake. “In recent days, we have examined 54 mail items sent to various recipients containing different kinds of powder,” he said. “But this is the first time we discovered the genuine anthrax agents.”

Embassy spokesman Michael Boyle said five empty mailbags received at the embassy between Oct. 11 and Oct. 24 were given to the laboratory for testing last week because of the announcement that State Department mail-handling facilities in Washington and Sterling, Va., where the pouches originated, were contaminated with anthrax.

Preliminary tests Wednesday indicated that two of the bags in Vilnius contained anthrax traces, and it was confirmed Thursday that at least one of those had tested positive for the anthrax bacillus, he said.

Boyle said the bag was part of the so-called diplomatic pouch, a secure system of distributing mail to U.S. diplomats worldwide that is separate from the general mail service. Such shipments were suspended by the State Department on Oct. 24.

The bags that reached Vilnius were handled by commercial carriers part of the way but would have remained sealed until they reached the embassy, Boyle said. At the embassy, the bags were opened and the letters and packages inside were distributed before the order to check recently sent mailbags for possible contamination.

Three embassy employees involved in mail-handling began antibiotics treatment last week as a precaution. Now that the presence of anthrax has been confirmed, antibiotics will be offered to all of the approximately 120 embassy staff on a voluntary basis, Boyle said.

“From what we are instructed and what I have read, fortunately, anthrax can be treated,” he said, stressing that no one has displayed any sign of illness thus far.

Lithuania is the second U.S. diplomatic mission, after Peru, to discover traces of the disease in mail sent from the State Department. Traces were found at the embassy in Lima, the Peruvian capital, earlier this week.

Boyle said the Vilnius embassy’s mail room has been sealed with plastic sheeting and that the embassy was awaiting instructions from Washington about how to decontaminate the entire building.

Tarbunas, the public health official, said Europeans should be alert to the possibility of bioterrorism spreading from the United States.

“All the countries and cities of Europe, especially those which host U.S. embassies and companies, should be on some kind of anthrax watch,” he said. “We can’t rule out that similar letters or parcels already have been sent and might be traveling in mail around Europe.”

The embassy in Vilnius was closed Thursday for All Saints’ Day, a national holiday in the Baltic nation, but is to reopen today. Boyle said embassy staff will be notified about the test results and immediately offered antibiotics.

In addition, officials said the Lithuanian lab workers who handled the mailbags and conducted the lab tests will be treated as a precaution.