Anthrax Victim Is Mourned; Another Leaves N.J. Hospital

On the day that Kathy T. Nguyen, the fourth fatality in the anthrax attacks, was buried in New York City, another inhalation anthrax patient in New Jersey was released from the hospital, becoming the third victim to recover from the often-fatal disease.

And researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota announced Monday that they have developed a new test designed to detect anthrax spores in people and places in less than an hour--an important diagnostic tool, if accurate.

The need for faster detection methods was illustrated Monday by the discovery of new anthrax hot spots and the results of additional tests showing that earlier reports of anthrax contamination at other locations were false alarms.

At the Pentagon, traces of anthrax were found on two post office boxes and cleaned up over the weekend, Pentagon officials said Monday. The two boxes, one rented by a Pentagon employee and the other unused, were among 1,100 private boxes available at the postal branch.

Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood said about 800 of the boxes were being used and renters were being notified and given the option to seek medical treatment. Health officials, he said, believed the findings are consistent with cross-contamination from mail that came from the tainted Washington postal hub that processed a letter sent to the Senate last month.

Also on Monday, State Department officials said preliminary tests showed anthrax spores at the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, although they cautioned that previous early tests had proved unreliable.

Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday that additional tests of its Maryland headquarters showed no evidence of anthrax, contradicting early test results last week.

Mail room employees at the FDA were told to stop taking anti-anthrax drugs. Tens of thousands of postal workers, federal employees and others have been advised by federal health officials to begin antibiotics while laboratory results were pending--and the vast majority were pulled off the drugs when tests came back negative.

An accurate, fast test for anthrax spores could speed treatment and significantly reduce the need for precautionary antibiotics.

But quick tests now on the market are so unreliable that federal officials have recommended they not be used. Medical and criminal investigators have been hampered by the delay--as long as several days--for cultures, the most reliable tests, to be completed.

The test announced Monday--called Mayo-Roche after its developers--uses a bare-bones version of a technique that detects tiny fragments of DNA that are specific to a particular species or creature. In this case, the test screens for pieces of anthrax DNA involved in making the bacterium’s dangerous outer coat.

The Mayo lab has already devised and is using similar rapid tests for diseases such as strep throat and herpes. But the research into such a test for anthrax “had been on the back burner” until the recent attacks, said Dr. Franklin Cockerill, a microbiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Cockerill headed the team that developed the anthrax test in collaboration with the Swiss company Roche Diagnostics.

The test has not yet been approved for diagnostic purposes, although FDA spokeswoman Sharon Snider said the agency is working with the company “to determine the best way to expedite review.”

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta cautioned that, although they have had conversations with the Mayo group, they have not studied the efficiency or validity of the test.

Initially, Roche plans to make the test available to about two dozen labs across the United States--the first possibly by the end of this week, said Juergen Flach, vice president of the company’s molecular biochemical division.

And in another potential breakthrough, scientists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington are screening 500 people this week who have been exposed to anthrax spores with a technology called LeuTech that shows where white blood cells are gathering in response to infection. The hope is that such screens may help doctors catch inhalation infections earlier, allowing aggressive treatment soon enough to improve a patient’s chances for survival.

In New York’s South Bronx, meanwhile, more than 300 people attended funeral services for Nguyen, a 61-year old hospital stockroom worker who died last week. Her case has baffled investigators, who can find no connection between Nguyen, a quiet Vietnamese immigrant who lived alone, and any of the known anthrax-laced letters.

“She was just a well-loved individual,” said Father Carlos Rodriguez during the 90-minute service, conducted in English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.

In a conference call Monday, Dr. Bradley Perkins, a CDC anthrax expert, said investigators are working hard to uncover Nguyen’s movements in her final days.

“There are . . . a number of places where she either visited and ate in restaurants, or may have actually been employed, that we’re still in the process of tracking down,” he said.

Nguyen was so gravely ill when she entered the hospital that she was unable to speak to law enforcement authorities.

In New Jersey, a postal employee who worked at the Hamilton Square, N.J., facility where all three anthrax-contaminated letters were processed, sounded an upbeat note as she was released from the hospital.

“Even though we have been confronted with a deadly disease, there is hope,” said Norma Wallace, 56, who had been hospitalized with inhalation anthrax, the type that has killed Nguyen and three others.

Wallace became ill last month just a few days after she stood nearby while a jammed processing machine was cleaned with compressed air. The postal service has since begun using vacuums to clean its equipment.

Wallace said she has not decided whether to return to work.

“I don’t think you should stand back and cower, because we don’t have to,” she said. “We have the greatest scientists, the greatest physicians. We don’t have to stand back in fear.”

Concern about future bioterrorism attacks led the National Academy of Sciences to call Monday for the creation of a federally run National Vaccine Authority to fund the creation of a wide range of needed vaccines from tetanus to smallpox.

“The capacity to develop, produce, and store vaccines to deal with these agents is inadequate to meet the nation’s needs,” the academy’s leaders said in a statement.

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Garvey reported from Washington and Mestel from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Robert A. Rosenblatt in Washington and Tom Gorman in New York contributed to this report.