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Posted on 10/07/2001 11:26:49 PM PDT by Keith in Iowa

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) - Preliminary tests show the presence of anthrax in a second Florida man, but it was not yet clear if he has a full-blown case of the disease that killed one of his co-workers last week, officials said early Monday.

A nasal swab from the man, whose name was not immediately made public, tested positive for the bacteria that causes anthrax, said Tim O'Conner, regional spokesman for the Florida Department of Health.

O'Conner said he couldn't say that the second case was related to terrorism.

"That would take a turn in the investigation," said O'Conner. "It's a different aspect, we were thinking more of environmental" sources.

"We did get a positive nasal sample from a person who is a person who worked with the person who died," of anthrax, confirmed Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The second man was in stable condition at an unidentified hospital, according to a statement issued late Sunday night by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Authorities in North Carolina also have looking for possible sources of anthrax since last week, when Bob Stevens, who worked at the supermarket tabloid the Sun, was confirmed to be suffering from anthrax. Stevens, of Lantana, Fla., died of the disease on Friday.

Stevens, the first person in 25 years in the United States to catch a case of the rare and deadly inhalation form of anthrax, had recently visited North Carolina.

It was unclear when the final tests would tell whether or not the second man has anthrax. The bacteria normally has an incubation period of up to seven days, but could take up to 60 days to develop, O'Conner said.

"We're waiting for additional testing to see if it will become a confirmed case of anthrax or not," said Reynolds said in a telephone interview from Atlanta. "I realize for the public this is going to be a very slight distinction."

In addition, environmental tests performed at the Sun's offices in Boca Raton have detected the anthrax bacteria, said O'Conner, who was reading from a statement he said would be made public later Monday by Florida Secretary of Health John Agwunobi.

The Sun's offices have been closed off and law enforcement, local and state health and CDC officials were to take additional samples from the building later Monday, O'Conner said.

The FBI was helping in the search for the source of the bacteria, said Miami FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela.

Employees at the newspaper would not be going to work Monday, O'Conner said.

He said about 300 people who work in the building are being contacted by the Sun and instructed to undergo antibiotic treatment to prevent the disease.

But "the current risk of anthrax is extremely low," O'Conner said.

People who have just been visitors to the building, he said, should not seek antibiotic treatment.

Michael Kahane, vice president and general counsel of American Media Inc., which publishes the Sun and two other tabloids, the Globe and the National Enquirer, declined comment early Monday.

Only 18 inhalation cases in the United States were documented in the 20th century, the most recent in 1976 in California. State records show the last anthrax case in Florida was in 1974. ^---

On the Net:

CDC: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/Anthrax/Anthrax.asp

AP-ES-10-08-01 0205EDT

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