PhilPost quarantines 13 employees over anthrax suspicion

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Postal Corp. (PhilPost) on Thursday said it has quarantined 13 employees and tapped firefighters to ensure there would be no anthrax contamination in its main building in Manila. A radio report quoted Clifford Dasig, head of the PhilPost Inspection Service, as saying that the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) has already began “detection and sanitizing jobs" at one portion of the PhilPost building in Manila’s district of Ermita. Dasig said they placed their employees in isolation to prevent posing harm on the public who would be getting their mails from the PhilPost, in case anthrax contamination is found. The move came after personnel from the United States Embassy on Thursday discovered white powder in an envelope in one of the office’s incoming mail. An inspection by the BFP showed the letter posed no health threat. Nevertheless, the US Embassy shifted to an "anthrax alert" status to ensure that suspicious letters and parcels would be cleared of anthrax before being opened. Anthrax is an acute disease in humans and animals caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which is highly lethal in some forms. The disease – which either can be contracted by inhaling, ingesting, or skin contact – can trigger coughing, colds, high fever, bleeding, and diarrhea. US diplomatic facilities worldwide have so far received 76 “suspicious" mails since 2006, according to an earlier dzBB report. The US postal service has been hit several years ago by an anthrax scare, prompting officials to employ “gamma irradiation," a process used in sterilizing medical supplies but is also effective in killing the anthrax virus. - Mark Merueñas, GMANews.TV