Can a single anthrax spore cause any form of the disease?
Public health experts said yesterday that the answer is unclear. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said earlier this month that it takes 8,000 to 10,000 anthrax spores to cause the deadly inhalation anthrax. Yesterday, CDC Director Jeffrey Koplan said it’s difficult to know the exact number of spores, because testing has been limited to animals. As for cutaneous anthrax, which is contracted through breaks in the skin and is highly treatable with antibiotics, CDC officials have said the number of spores necessary to contract it is less than for inhalation anthrax, but they don’t know how few. Ken Alibek, a defector who played a key role in the former Soviet Union’s biological weapons program, said as few as 10 to 15 spores would be enough. Is mail being decontaminated before it is delivered? Some mail is. All mail that was at the District’s Brentwood Road postal processing facility when it was closed Oct. 22 was sent last week to a plant in Ohio to be sanitized
