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Security of the Mail |
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USPSNewsbreak |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Nov. 6, 2001 9 a.m. New Jersey mail processor suffering from inhalation anthrax released from hospital
Good news! A mail processor at the Trenton, NJ, Processing and Distribution Center was released yesterday from a New Jersey hospital. She had been confirmed by the CDC with inhalation anthrax on Oct. 23. Two USPS employees at the Brentwood Road facility in Washington remain hospitalized at a DC area hospital: a distribution clerk, who is in serious condition, and a transportation supervisor in stable condition. 3,300 of the total 5,000 employees of the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center in New York City have received an additional 50-day supply of precautionary antibiotic treatment offered to them, as recommended by the CDC. Health officials have recommended that all employees on the second and third floors of the facility's southern section receive the additional treatment. In addition, 1,800 employees of facilities downstream from the Morgan facility also have completed a precautionary 10-day supply of antibiotics. No New York postal employee has tested positive. Two traces of anthrax, from a total 17 samples, have been found in post office boxes of the USPS Pentagon Station Post Office at the Pentagon. Initial environmental tests began Oct. 30. Results were returned on Nov. 3 and decontamination and retesting took place on Nov. 4. All tests were negative. However, the facility remains closed. The six USPS employees assigned to Pentagon Station had already been placed on precautionary antibiotic treatment, following a CDC recommendation for all employees in downstream facilities from Brentwood. Four Boston area postal facilities tested negative for anthrax in results announced yesterday. They are the Boston General Mail Center, the Incoming Mail Center in Chelsea, the Northwest Boston Processing and Distribution Center in Waltham and the Braintree Detached Mail Unit. The Princeton Post Office reopened yesterday after being closed for environmental testing for anthrax. The West Trenton Post Office will re-open today following negative test results conducted by the New Jersey Department of Health and the FBI. After West Trenton re-opens, there will be four postal facilities that remain closed: the Trenton and Brentwood Road Processing and Distribution Centers, the Pentagon Station Post Office and the Stamp Fulfillment Center in Kansas City, MO. ### |