NAIROBI, Kenya – White powder in a letter mailed from Atlanta to a Kenyan has tested positive for anthrax spores, the health minister said Thursday, the first case of a tainted letter outside the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Health Minister Sam Ongeri told a news conference that the unidentified recipient and four family members ``may have come into contact'' with the spores and were being tested, but they are ``not in danger.'' The powder was undergoing further tests, he said.
White powder was found in two other letters — one to an official with the U.N. Environment Program in Nairobi and the other to a Kenyan businessman in the central town of Nyeri, Ongeri said. Those letters were being tested at the state-run Kenya Medical Research Institute, he said.
The letter that tested positive for anthrax had been mailed Sept. 8 from Atlanta, Ongeri said, and was received in Kenya on Oct. 9. It was opened on Oct. 11.
The hand-addressed letter to the U.N. official was mailed from Pakistan, and the letter to the businessman appeared to have been mailed from Nairobi, he said.
UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall said the letter from Pakistan had seemed suspicious.
``It was a very sort of dirty looking envelope with rather eccentric writing on it. It just looked dirty, odd and suspicious. We get thousands of letters and some do look a bit odd,'' Nuttall said.
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