The Pentagon had few answers Thursday as to how live anthrax got shipped from one of its military labs, or whether any additional civilians were exposed to the potentially deadly biological agent.
At least 22 personnel at Osan Air Force Base in South Korea are now taking precautions, including receiving Cipro, in case they were exposed to anthrax after a military lab inadvertently shipped potentially live samples to it and nine other government and private labs across the U.S.
The personnel affected include 10 soldiers, five airmen, four contractors and three government civilians.
But it was not clear why these personnel were exposed or when. The military laboratory that provided the samples in Dugway, Utah, notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on May 22 that the samples may not have been inert. The lab acted after learning that a private lab, the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland, alerted the Pentagon that the shipment had tested active.
The Pentagon alerted the affected labs and the government of South Korea, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Thursday.
Warren could not provide a timeline on when the Osan personnel were potentially exposed, saying that the CDC was still gathering information on the timeframe and details.
The Pentagon also could not say how the samples were shipped to South Korea and the other destinations. They could have been shipped aboard a commercial aircraft, such as a cargo jet, or by a passenger airline, potentially putting many more people at risk.
Despite the lack of details, the Pentagon insisted that the situation posed no threat to the civilian population.
“I’m 99.9 percent confident that nobody’s in danger,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Thursday morning, according to the Hill.
He added that, based on initial reports, personnel followed the right procedures in handling the spores.
“Best I can tell, there was not human error,” he said.
