Uganda, Kenya Free Of Anthrax Scourge

By Charles Wendo TWO parcels that caused an anthrax scare in Kampala on Monday have both tested negative for the dreaded germ, health ministry officials said yesterday. Meanwhile, the AFP yesterday quoted reports from Paris, France as saying that both anthrax attacks reported outside the United States proved to be false alarms. A letter which Kenyan authorities had said contained anthrax spores later tested negative for the bacterium, a US official said, while an Argentinian official said that anthrax found in a letter there was from a harmless strain. Uganda’s commissioner for community health, Dr. Sam Okware, said preliminary results from the test done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute indicated that the parcels did not have anthrax germs. “We are still testing other things but it is negative for anthrax. So far so good,” he said. The suspicious parcels were picked from Mama FM, a women’s radio station based in Kisaasi and the Kampala Post Office. Okware said the National Task Force on Bioterrorism is also investigating a suspicious letter sent to Makerere University from Nigeria. Medical experts yesterday picked the letter and sent it to the Uganda Virus Research Institute for testing. The Makerere University anthrax scare is the fourth in Kampala since last week. Ends