A New Jersey woman who developed skin anthrax may have become infected by handling a letter that arrived at her office after passing through a contaminated postal facility, which could mark the first known case of such transmission, officials said yesterday. 
A preliminary test on the 51-year-old accountant's mailbox at work came back positive yesterday for anthrax. If follow-up tests confirm the findings, officials said the spores might have been delivered by ordinary mail that came in contact with letters laden with bacteria that were mailed to news organizations in New York and Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle's Capitol Hill office.
"A logical assumption would be that there is some sort of cross contamination," said postal inspector Dan Mihalko. The mail for the woman's workplace passed through a processing facility in Hamilton Township, N.J., believed to have handled the letters to Daschle and New York.
If that is the case, it could open a new dimension in the anthrax crisis: Tens of thousands of homes in Washington and around the country have received mail that may have come in contact with letters containing anthrax by passing through the same postal facilities. If cross-contaminated letters can carry spores that can make people sick, this could sharply increase the number of people at risk. 
Officials, however, were quick to note that alternate explanations remained for how the woman became infected. She could have been mailed a letter containing anthrax spores directly, or she could have became infected through other as-yet unknown means at home or work.
Postal Service spokeswoman Kristin Krathwohl called the case "a very isolated incident," adding: "We have no reason at this time to change any of the advice that we're giving to people. . . . We encourage people to continue following that advice and to basically very carefully wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water after they've handled the mail."
Health investigators believe the contamination in the Brentwood postal facility in Washington was largely confined to the area of the building that handles government mail, said Donna Garland, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That makes it unlikely that residential customers would be at risk for skin anthrax, she said.
The CDC yesterday confirmed the diagnoses of a New York Post editor previously reported to have developed skin anthrax, bringing to 17 the total number of cases of anthrax to have been confirmed. That includes 10 victims of inhalation anthrax, of whom four died, and seven people who suffered the skin variety. All but two -- the New Jersey woman and a New York woman who died from the more serious inhalational form of the disease -- have either been postal workers or people who worked at places that received letters containing anthrax spores.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said it was "a good sign" that authorities had found a clue as to how the New Jersey woman, who has not been identified, had become infected.
Investigators yesterday said there was no word yet on what might have caused inhalation anthrax infection in 61-year-old Kathy T. Nguyen, who died on Wednesday. Tests in the hospital where Nguyen worked and at her home have turned up negative for anthrax spores.
The New Jersey woman developed an anthrax lesion on her forehead that required her to be hospitalized. Her diagnosis was confirmed on Monday and she has since been discharged from the hospital. 
The sample that came back positive was taken from the woman's mailbox at her office near Trenton. Other employees at her unidentified company are believed to be at low risk for cutaneous anthrax and at no risk for inhalation anthrax, CDC officials said.
The CDC yesterday also confirmed that a Kansas City postal center was contaminated and its workers possibly exposed to anthrax, and said the agency planned to send a team of experts to Phoenix to guard against a biological attack during the remainder of the World Series. 
Thompson, meanwhile, said that HHS is negotiating with the British and Russian governments about acquiring stocks of anthrax vaccine. Health officials said a number of "offshore" producers of the vaccine had been encouraged to get safety approvals from the Food and Drug Administration.
Officials declined to comment on whether the vaccine's intended use was civilian or military: A U.S. company is waiting for clearance to ship millions of doses of the vaccine to the military.
Bradley Perkins of the CDC cautioned that the course of the anthrax scare would not follow the typical course of a biological epidemic: "I think it's a very important point to recognize that this is not a normal epidemic resulting from [a] predictable biologic phenomenon. This is a criminal activity. We will remain on high alert, high vigilance until the criminal investigation has identified the people that are committing this crime."
Investigators are trying to determine which laboratory might have been the source of the anthrax bacterium being used in the attacks by checking on inventories and asking about visitors. The FBI may also eventually sponsor genetic testing on some of the Ames strains housed at U.S. research institutions, experts close to the investigation said.
Such studies could narrow the search for the source of the bacteria used in the recent mail attacks because different samples of the Ames strain in different laboratories can have subtle genetic differences that can serve as unique molecular fingerprints. Such testing is very sophisticated and could take months to complete if it is ever initiated, experts said.
Staff writers Justin Blum, Ellen Nakashima, Rick Weiss and Ben White contributed to this report. 
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