Posted on 04/28/2003 10:28:14 AM PDT by Shermy
I'll bet the clean-up team is enroute to keep this story under wraps. I wonder which hotel the mule died in. The health care workers had to come in contact with anthrax in his room, since anthrax isn't contagious, right?
Scarier still is that you're likely to die of something you've never considered or at a time your never thought likely ...
SOUNDS like gastro-intestinal - NOT inhalation anthrax ...
"Bad Beef" from a foreign country ...
Then this guy is a silent hero.
THAT'S the effect that kills - the toxins. Gastro-intestinal is rarely fatal too ...
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/anthrax/disease_rec.html
The last case of inhalational anthrax in the United States, before 2001, was in 1976 in California. A home craftsman died of the disease. He was exposed through his work with yarn; Bacillus anthracis was isolated from some of the imported yarns used by the patient.
Ibrahim may not have got to the ship at all, thereby nothing might be found on the ship.
Unclear for now.
HALIFAX (AP)--Infectious disease experts spent five hours taking swabs of living quarters and interviewing crew members after boarding a ship quarantined off the coast of Nova Scotia to search for traces of anthrax early Saturday.
Six specialists, armed with protective suits, masks and jugs of bleach, inspected the Wadi Al Arab, an Egyptian vessel anchored about 10 kilometers offshore.
They completed their search in the afternoon after taking swab samples from the 225-meter-long ship's cabins, living quarters, galley and bridge to determine if the vessel is contaminated with the lethal bacterial disease.
The team of quarantine and environmental officers also spoke with the ship's captain and all 30 crew members.
"It's just what we expected. Everyone is in extremely good health," Tracey Taweel, a Health Canada spokeswoman, said Saturday evening.
"There have no illnesses with the crew and they were exceptionally cooperative in terms of welcoming our team on board and allowing them to do the work they needed to get done."
The Egyptian vessel was placed under a one-kilometer exclusion zone when it arrived near the mouth of the Halifax harbor early Friday. That prevents anyone from leaving the ship or any other boats from getting near it.
Canadian officials will keep the bulk carrier out at sea until they can determine whether there are traces of the bacteria, which is suspected to have caused the death of the ship's chief officer, Ibrahim Sayed Ibrahim, about 10 days ago in Brazil.
They likely won't have the test results from the lab in Halifax until late Monday or Tuesday, Taweel confirmed. The ship would be released if it was cleared of anthrax or any other communicable disease.
"We're in a bit of a holding pattern at this point," she said. "We just have to wait until we hear back from the lab about the results."
A specialist with the Brazilian Health Department said the anthrax bacilli were discovered in the man's body after he died while the ship was off Brazil. However, a conclusive autopsy report had yet to be completed.
"The bacilli of anthrax was found in his body," Carlos Lopes told The Canadian Press from Brasilia, the capital of the South American country. He said it wasn't clear if the traces came from external sources or if they caused the death.
Lopes said the results of a second autopsy were expected to be available Tuesday.
Ibrahim died of septicemia, a generalized infection that spread quickly, said Luiz Malcher, the chief coroner of the port city of Belem in Brazil, on Sunday.
Septicemia occurs when toxins from the bacteria enter the blood stream and do damage to the organs.
He said there was strong hemorrhaging of the lungs, pancreas and brain, a symptom consistent with anthrax poisoning.
The ship was headed to an Alcan Inc. smelter on the Saguenay River in Quebec, but was diverted to Nova Scotia after it was learned Ibrahim might have died from anthrax, an infection that usually afflicts sheep and cattle, but which is transmissible to humans.
Officials know very little about what happened to Ibrahim, said to be an Egyptian in his 50s who was part of a crew change just days before he died. It is thought he died after the Wadi Al Arab left a Brazilian port about two weeks ago. His body was removed and the vessel was sanitized.
Malcher said Ibrahim had started feeling ill about seven hours after boarding the ship.
"He was found dead early the next morning," he said. "Before boarding Ibrahim was submitted to routine medical examinations and was found to be in perfect health, so it would seem that the infection occurred on board."
The ship, a 37,550-ton carrier, is owned and operated by National Navigation of Egypt.
Ibrahim traveled from Cairo and stayed in a hotel in Brazil while he waited for the Wadi Al Arab to arrive. His body was returned to Egypt after the autopsy, a federal official said.
Dr. Douglas Sinclair, an emergency medicine specialist at the IWK Grace Hospital in Halifax, said the disease acts quickly and usually presents symptoms when it is too late to treat.
"Patients get very, very sick before it's recognized," he said, adding that it is not contagious. "It's fairly potent."
It is transmissible to humans through anthrax spores, which killed several people in the U.S. following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Dow Jones Newswires 04-28-031341ET
Did Ibrahim tell them about the origin and destination of the suitcase before he died, or did someone else? Is the person to whom he was to deliver it in Canada also "unidentified?"
IMEDIATO EGÍPCIO DE EMBARCAÇÃO ESTRANGEIRA MORREU DE HEMORRAGIA INTERNA DIA 11 EM PORTO TROMBETASO superintendente da Polícia Federal do Pará, Geraldo Araújo, disse ser grande a possibilidade de Ibrahim Sayed Ibrahim - que morreu a bordo do navio egípcio Wadi Al Arab no último dia 11 - ter sido infectado por antraz. Araújo não descarta a hipótese de tentativa de ato terrorista. A embarcação, que saiu do Brasil com destino ao Canadá, está retida desde a última sexta-feira no porto de Halifax, depois que o IML (Instituto Médico Legal) de Belém apontou indícios de contaminação pela bactéria, usada em armas biológicas, no corpo de Ibrahim. Ele morreu enquanto o barco estava atracado no Porto de Trombetas, no Pará. Ibrahim, que era o imediato do cargueiro egípcio. "Não descartamos a hipótese de terrorismo, mas é preciso confirmar primeiro se a contaminação foi, de fato, provocada por antraz. Há 90% de chance de ser, mas somente o resultado da contraprova, que deve ser divulgada pelo Instituto Evandro Chagas entre os dias 2 e 3, é que mostrará isso", afirmou Araújo.
"Ele teve hemorragia interna generalizada", disse o superintendente, que está em Tabatinga para receber o ministro da Justiça, Márcio Thomaz Bastos. O ministro irá para a região nesta segunda-feira para conhecer detalhes da operação de fiscalização das fronteiras.
Embarcação isolada
De acordo com o superintendente, a polícia investiga a versão de que Ibrahim recebeu uma encomenda no Cairo, de onde partiu para São Paulo. "Ele veio de avião para o Brasil e se encontrou com a tripulação do navio no Amapá. A bagagem foi lacrada e retida em Belém após sua morte e só será analisada depois que o exame cadavérico ficar pronto."
A embarcação levava um carregamento de bauxita do Pará para uma fábrica da Alcan, no Canadá. Com o resultado do exame do IML, a Polícia Federal acionou autoridades canadenses, que isolaram o navio a cerca de 10 km da costa de Nova Escócia (leste do Canadá), com uma zona de exclusão de 1 km em torno dele. (Agência Folha)
Exactly...or already here.
Everyone should remember that this anthrax was destined to kill you and me....do not forget that!
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