New Jersey Postal Worker Verified as Latest Case of Inhalation Anthrax

A new case of inhalation anthrax was confirmed Sunday in a New Jersey postal worker, while a mail facility of yet another government agency has tested positive for the bacteria’s deadly spores.

The latest infection involves a woman who works at a Hamilton Square postal facility that processed three anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to New York and Washington, D.C.

The unidentified woman, whose condition is improving, had previously been identified as a suspected anthrax case, said Susan McClure, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department.

Test results returned Sunday confirmed the case--New Jersey’s first of the most serious form of the disease that has killed three people this month.

In Washington on Sunday night, the Justice Department revealed that several locations in a suburban Maryland postal facility that processes its mail has tested positive for anthrax.

Spokeswoman Susan Dryden said samples from a variety of locations within the Landover, Md., facility showed the presence of the bacteria, including sites that handle mail for Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.

The Justice Department mail is first processed at the Brentwood facility in Washington, which is now closed. Two mail handlers at that facility have died of inhalation anthrax.

Dryden said mail rooms within the Justice Department also have been tested; results are expected later this week.

The White House warned earlier Sunday that more tainted letters could still be circulating.

“There may be other letters that are stuck in the [postal] system,” White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re asking people to be very careful.”

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, a trace of anthrax was found in a police office, a senior congressional aide said.

As environmental testing continued in congressional offices, “there could be some other hot spots,” said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Three major congressional buildings will remain closed today: the Dirksen Senate Office Building, where an anthrax-laden envelope was opened two weeks ago by the staff of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.); the Longworth House Office Building, where traces of anthrax were discovered Friday in the offices of three House members; and the Ford House Office Building, where anthrax was found in the mail room.

On Sunday, another trace of anthrax was found in the Ford building--this time in the office of the police bomb squad that had initially responded to Daschle office incident, the senior White House aide said.

Gephardt, in the television interview, criticized some government officials, whom he did not mention by name, for failing to be more forthcoming on the potency of the type of anthrax contained in the letter to Daschle.

“In some officials’ mind, the idea was, if you give people information it will panic people,” Gephardt said. “The opposite is true.”

In an effort to better coordinate the dissemination of information about anthrax and other terrorist threats, the White House is planning to announce today that Thomas J. Ridge, the White House’s director of Homeland Security, will give regular briefings.

In a spate of cases from New York to Boca Raton, Fla., involving mail contaminated with anthrax spores, three people have died and at least 11 others have been infected with the disease.

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Associated Press contributed to this report.