Anthrax scare in Mumbai post office

mumbai: the two postal employees who were admitted to nair hospital on december 31 after handling suspicious mail that arrived at the cumballa hill post office are ``fit as fiddle and have shown no worrisome symptoms'', says hospital dean sharadini dahanukar. the authorities are awaiting the report from the haffkine institute on the contents of the postal package which is being tested for the presence of anthrax spores.n.a.maldar (36) and gopal wadkar (48) complained of giddiness and nausea after they handled an envelope containing a plastic packet filled with a brownish powder on december 31. they were rushed to nair hospital where maldar got himself admitted. the other postman was examined and preferred to go home. however, he returned the next day and got himself admitted too, says dr dahanukar.the envelope contained some brown powder in a package as well as a new year greeting card bearing the picture of osama bin laden. it was addressed to mr and mrs p.k. deshpande, residents of cumballa hill, but the name of the addressee was not mentioned on the envelope, an official from the postal department said. the open envelope was first sighted by ragini achrekar while sorting mail. she immediately alerted her colleagues wadkar and maldar.the postal employees suspect that they may have inhaled some of the powder when the package fell out of the envelope. ``we were so scared, since there was bin laden's photo in the envelope too,'' said maldar. ``soon after handling the package, i began feeling nauseous and giddy. the incident occurred in the afternoon, but by 5 p.m., i thought it better to go to a hospital for a checkup.'' he, as well as mr wadekar, claimed to be absolutely fine at present.the haffkine institute director dr s m sapatnekar has, however, ruled out accidental inhaling of the powder since he says the package sent to them was sealed.the institute is likely to have a report ready by thursday evening. ``we put the powder for culturing on tuesday. if it contains any anthrax spores, they will show up in the cultures by thursday evening. if the culture is negative, however, we may have to run it again, to be doubly sure,'' dr sapatnekar said.although after the initial nausea, the two postal workers have not shown any worrisome clinical symptoms, the hospital plans to keep them on a course of antibiotics, including ciprofloxacin and penicillin till the haffkine institute is able to rule out the presence of any anthrax spores in the powder, says dr dahanukar. doctors feel that the initial symptoms were most likely triggered by apprehension and fear. ``you cannot develop symptoms of anthrax so quickly, even if war-grade spores are inhaled,'' says dr sapatnekar.ever since the anthrax mail began doing the rounds of the country in october, the haffkine institute has examined 122 `suspicious' mail packages. none of them tested positive for anthrax. the closest the city came to an actual anthrax scare was when, on november 2, the thane-based private laboratory molecular diagnostic centre, which ran the polymerase chain reaction (pcr) test on a sample of powder from a mail package received by deputy chief minister chhagan bhujbal showed the presence of anthrax.the same sample had tested negative in the culture test conducted by haffkine. subsequent tests by the jj hospital laboratory as well as the drdo lab at gwalior ruled out the presence of anthrax in the specimen. experts noted that the presence of anthrax in the thane tests was due to environmental contamination. they pointed out that the pcr test was so sensitive that it picked up even trace elements of a substance.haffkine had set up a control room in october to handle the inflow of suspicious packages as well as to guide the public on what to do if they received suspicious mail. the room was officially closed on december 12 after the anthrax scare died down.dr sapatnekar told this newspaper that the only difference between this package and previous ones was that this seemed a more professional job. ``everything in this particular mail was printed, there were no handwritten scrawls,'' he noted.