WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- The head of the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that a 63-year-old Lantana, Fla., man has been diagnosed with "pulmonary anthrax," but he said the case was isolated and not believed to be connected to a biological terrorist incident.
Anthrax is a naturally occurring disease that can be contracted through the skin, inhalation, and gastrointestinally. The vast majority of cases arise when people with cuts or abrasions on their hands handle infected animal products.
But governments and individuals have produced anthrax as a possible biological weapon and the United States has been on heightened alert for its use by terrorists since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
In a White House briefing clearly arranged to assuage public anxiety, Secretary Tommy Thompson said U.S. Public Health Service's Center for Disease Control in Atlanta had confirmed Thursday that a man stricken on Oct. 2 had anthrax.
"People need to understand that our public health system is on heightened alert, so we may have more public reports on what appear to be isolated cases. It appears that this is an isolated case," Thompson said.
Tim O'Connor, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Florida Public Health Department told United Press International that the man was admitted to the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Atlantis, Fla., at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday. He was vomiting, having seizures and running a very high fever. Physicians suspected spinal meningitis and gave the man a spinal tap and noted "rod shaped bacillus."
They sent their findings to the Florida State Health Department in Jacksonville, Fl., where a preliminary diagnosis of "bacillus anthracis," the scientific name for anthrax, was made on Wednesday and the CDC confirmed anthrax Thursday.
The man, Bob Stevens, is an employee of American Media, Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer. He is unconscious and in critical condition at Kennedy Medical Center.
Stevens contracted anthrax through inhalation -- a type of infection, the CDC says, is usually fatal.
In a statement, American Media, Inc., said, "Doctors and investigators are working to determine how Stevens, an avid outdoorsman, contracted the disease. He had been out of the office since Sept. 26th."
Thompson said in his White House briefing that Stevens had traveled to North Carolina and returned to Florida in the period since the 26th.
"We've also dispatched people from CDC to North Carolina, to the communities that he was there," he said. "We're checking with his neighbors. We're investigating with the FBI all known places and all the things that he might have ingested."
Thompson said the man had been drinking from a stream, but he did not know whether it was factor.
"I want to make sure everybody understands that anthrax is not contagious and it's not communicable, which means it is not spread from person to person," Thompson said. He said there were adequate supplies of antibiotics to treat 2,000,000 cases for 60 days.
"There is enough available, we have an ample supply," he said.
In the past two weeks, concern over anthrax has caused people to buy antibiotics and gas masks, but experts have said that gas masks are not an effective protection and that antibiotics can't be taken in advance.
