Woman dies of anthrax as 'disgruntled American' suspected

The death by inhalation anthrax of a 94-year-old woman from rural Connecticut is mystifying US investigators who say the woman had no known contact with past sources of contamination.

Local postal offices have tested negative.

Meanwhile the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mr Tommy Thompson, has confirmed to USA Today what many anonymous security sources have been suggesting recently that the attacks are the work of a "disgruntled American".

Mr Thompson said that a microbiologist working alone with about $2,000 worth of equipment could have been responsible.

The new case brought to seven the number of people who have been contaminated with inhalation anthrax.

Five people have so far died of the condition.

The woman, Ms Ottilie Lundgren, from the tiny town of Oxford, had been in a critical condition at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut. Six tests carried out locally have identified anthrax, a result confirmed yesterday by a DNA test by the Atlanta Centre for Disease Control, whose investigation team are now working locally.

Ms Lundgren's was the first new case of anthrax in the country since a hospital worker, Kathy Nguyen, succumbed to it on October 31st in Manhattan, about 70 miles south-west of Oxford.

Although she lived in farm country, anthrax has not been seen in livestock on the East Coast in decades.

Investigators have been interviewing all her friends and family in an attempt to establish a clear trace on all her movements in the past few weeks.

Though she drove a car her travels were said to be mostly local.

The new infection has also led to speculation that elderly people, whose immune systems may not be as effective as those of the young, may be more vulnerable to lower concentrations of spores - perhaps the reason why she alone, and not people around her, has been infected.

In Washington yesterday, Lieut Dan Nichols, the spokesman for the Capitol police, said traces of anthrax spores had been found in the offices of two Democratic senators, Mr Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Mr Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

Frank Millar reports:

The British International Development Secretary, Ms Clare Short, has said "disorder is the enemy of humanitarian relief" and that continuing delay in the deployment of British troops in Afghanistan is "regrettable".

Ms Short made her comments as the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, assured the Conservative leader, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, that London and Washington remained "at one" and that decisions on the deployment of about 6,000 troops presently on standby would only be taken in full consultation with the Americans.

Ms Short complained of "gross misreporting" of comments to the Select Committee on Tuesday when she raised doubts about America's commitment to the humanitarian and rebuilding effort required in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban regime.

At the same time she repeated her complaint that the US contributes only 0.1 per cent of its annual GDP to aid, telling MPs she stood by her suggestion that "there did seem to be a problem with the US that a country made up of diverse nationalities had turned inwards and was rather insular". While not a Defence minister and therefore "not up to the minute" on the latest negotiations about possible troop deployments, Ms Short told the BBC's World at One programme: "As everyone knows we and the French were ready to go and others were talking about going, to be there briefly while order and a new government is established, and there has been a delay and that's regrettable."

The Northern Alliance's leader, the former Afghan president, Mr Burhanuddin Rabbani, indicated last night in a Channel 4 News interview that the group did not want to see any more British troops in the country.

British security sources said last night the net was closing on Sheikh Abu Qatada, a Palestinian Islamic cleric living in London, who had been identified by Spanish investigators as Osama bin Laden's suspected right-hand man in Europe.

--(Reuters)