REPORTS are emerging that the British Government is stockpiling millions of doses of anti-anthrax drugs -- as fear of the contamination is spreading from America to this country.

British doctors and nurses are now on anthrax alert and have been told to look out for patients with unusual symptoms. With several confirmed cases in the United States and growing anxiety in this country about bioterror, we turn to our sister paper USA Today for an update and some answers AS anthrax contamination spread from Florida to New York and then to Nevada, anxiety about bioterrorism edged uncomfortably close to panic.

Confirmation over the weekend of new cases of exposure to anthrax -- including a police officer and two lab technicians -- set off a rash of false alarms.

Several companies, among them the Associated Press, CNN and CBS, shut down their mailrooms, at least temporarily.

The FBI issued warnings on how to handle suspicious letters and packages in light of evidence that the mail is being used to transport anthrax.

"There are a lot of people in America that are afraid but understandably so because bioterrorism has never hit America before," US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said on a Fox News' programme.

Officially, the count of people exposed to anthrax stands at 12. That includes one America Media Inc employee, Bob Stevens, who died of inhalation anthrax, and seven other employees of the Florida publisher of supermarket tabloids who have been exposed to the bacteria.

At NBC News, the aide who opens Stevens' mail, Erin O'Connor, tested positive for cutaneous anthrax, the skin form of the disease.

On Sunday, New York authorities announced that a police officer and two lab technicians tested positive for exposure to the bacteria. A second NBC employee has shown symptoms of skin anthrax, although it has not yet been confirmed.

In Reno, pornographic photographs in a letter sent from Malaysia to a branch of Microsoft tested positive for anthrax spores. Preliminary tests of four employees who may have handled the letter or its contents are negative, officials said.

As part of these cases, more than 1,000 employees of the companies involved were tested and, in some cases, retested. Meanwhile, the demands for even more testing is expanding in an ever-widening circle.

A man in Edison, New Jersey, who works at a Ford Motor Co plant is undergoing further tests after he developed a skin infection, although a first test indicated staphylococcus.

Employees of The New York Times as well as the St Petersburg Times and The Columbus Dispatch underwent testing after suspicious letters were received.

Postal workers in Florida and New York -- who may have handled mail sent to the tabloids or NBC -- are undergoing testing. Several post offices -- from Connecticut to Port Townsend, Washington, were evacuated after scares over spilled powder.

On Sunday, the FBI issued new advice on the handling of mail and packages, a step it has not taken since the early 1990s during the Unabomber case.

They advised mail handlers to isolate the letters or packages and immediately notify authorities. Suspicious packages, the FBI said, might contain excessive postage to ensure delivery. They might be stained, produce strange odours or appear lopsided.

The latest cases made many people jittery.

Natasha Ratenberg, a 26-year-old financial analyst in New York, said she had just settled down from the trauma of September 11 on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon when she heard about anthrax at NBC's headquarters at Rockefeller Center.

"My friends in Brooklyn have definitely not come into Manhattan because of it," she said.

Amit Akkihal, a 24-year-old New York college student, said anthrax anxiety drove him off public transportation.

"This is pretty scary -- also it's odourless, so you wouldn't know if you have it," he said.

All weekend, teams of federal agents across the country responded to hundreds of reports. Authorities believe most of the calls were hoaxes, adding to a general frenzy that took hold late last week when the FBI put the nation on high alert of imminent terrorist attack.

So far, investigators have not linked the anthrax contamination to the terrorist attacks.

But authorities have not been able to calm public fears because so many key questions remain unanswered: How did the culprits gain access to anthrax? What level of sophistication is required to successfully pull off what has been done so far? How difficult would it be technically to launch a wide-scale attack?

The testing itself has been a complicated ordeal because it is an inexact science and few physicians have had much experience with anthrax.

But as a bioterrorism weapon, anthrax has distinct limitations.

Anthrax is "a weapon of confusion, or worry but highly inefficient," said Philip Hanna, a researcher at the University of Michigan.

It is a finicky germ, hard to produce in large quantities because of its pickiness about temperature and how it is grown.

Anthrax spores also tend to clump together in globs too large to penetrate deep into the human respiratory system where they need to go to cause disease.

Anyone who wants a lot of people to get sick needs to find a way to break up the spores and dispense them in a fine spray.

A regular crop-dusting plane will not do it, nor will commercially available nozzles.

So, what is anthrax?

It is a bacterial infection caused by infection with the organism Bacillus anthracis. The bacterium is carried by wild and domestic animals in Asia, Africa and parts of Europe. The bacterium can exist in a form known as a spore which allows the bacterium to survive for a long time in the environment (for example, in soil).

In what form does anthrax come?

In nature, it is found in spores in soil around the world. In order to be used as a weapon, it would most likely be sprayed in the form of a fine liquid mist. It can also be dried and mixed with powder but would not cause illness unless the powder were sniffed or inhaled.

How can people be infected with anthrax?

Three ways, and all can be fatal. By eating undercooked meat from infected animals -- which is rare and almost always fatal. Contact through scrapes or cuts with spores which may cling to animal hides or wool can cause skin anthrax.

This is usually easily detected and can be treated successfully with antibiotics. Inhaled anthrax, the most likely form used in bioterrorism, is fatal in 80 to 90 per cent of cases unless treatment begins before the first symptoms occur.

How can you tell if someone has inhaled anthrax?

Symptoms can begin as long as 60 days after exposure but usually appear within seven to 10 days. They include fever, malaise, fatigue and sometimes a dry cough. Then, there is often a period of improvement that lasts from a few hours to two or three days.

That is followed by trouble breathing, sweating, bluish discolouration of the skin. The patient usually goes into shock and dies 24 to 36 hours after the severe symptoms begin.

Is anthrax contagious?

No. Anthrax is not passed through the air from person to person or from animal to person.

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