Officials say there are no signs anyone got sick from anthrax after a lab safety problem at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Reuters.
Earlier this month, the CDC said dozens of workers at three labs in Atlanta may have been accidentally exposed to anthrax, but on Monday, CDC officials said anthrax spores have not been found on surfaces in the labs and it's not clear that any dangerous anthrax was released, Reuters reported. A CDC internal report on what went wrong is expected later this week.
About 60 workers were offered antibiotics and vaccinations as precautionary treatment, but the CDC says about half can now stop taking the medication, according to Reuters. Some 29 individuals in the first group are being advised to continue taking antibiotics; 33 individuals in the latter group are being advised to stop taking them.
The CDC conducted the tests after an incident in the agency's high-security bioterror response laboratory suggested live anthrax may have been transferred from that lab to employees in a lower-security facility who were not wearing proper protective gear, raising concerns that they may have been exposed to the deadly pathogen, Reuters reported.
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said preliminary results of environmental testing in the lower-security labs and some lab tests by the CDC suggest no viable bacteria left the lab, according to Reuters. Based on those results, most of the employees involved have been determined "to have no increased risk of exposure."
In addition to the testing, the CDC gave the employees a questionnaire asking how close they had come to the areas where the anthrax was worked on, Reuters reported.
Two groups of staff were selected: One including staff potentially exposed to aerosols in affected laboratory space and a second group not potentially exposed but having worked in or near affected laboratory space, according to Reuters.
"Employees in these groups are having one-on-one appointments with medical staff in CDC's occupational health clinic who are reviewing all information with them and discussing the pros and cons of continuing post-exposure prophylaxis as part of shared decision making," Skinner said, Reuters reported.
