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2 N.J. postal workers sick, but improving; anthrax suspected

EWING, New Jersey (CNN) -- Two New Jersey postal workers with suspected cases of inhalation anthrax appeared to be improving Saturday, state health officials said.

One remains hospitalized nine days after she was admitted and is in serious but stable condition, said state epidemiologist Eddy Bresnitz. Her fever has broken and she is improving on antibiotics, Bresnitz said.

The other patient was discharged to her home on antibiotics.

Evidence that either of the workers has anthrax remains circumstantial, say investigators. Both women work at the regional mail processing center in Hamilton Township, outside Trenton, where two other employees contracted the more benign cutaneous (skin) form of the disease, Bresnitz said.

Blood samples have been sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for conclusive tests, he said.

Antibiotics recommended

Meanwhile, health officials recommended that postal workers and anyone else who entered the nonpublic working areas of the Hamilton facility and at the West Trenton branch office since September 18 take a 60-day course of antibiotics as a precaution.

Thirty-three of 82 environmental samples taken in the Hamilton facility tested positive for anthrax, said George DiFerdinando, acting commissioner of the state Department of Health and Senior Services.

None of 1,300 workers tested appears to have been infected with anthrax, he said.

Still, officials recommended earlier this week that anyone who works in or picked up mail from those areas also begin treatment with antibiotics.

Since public areas where stamps are sold tested negative for anthrax, there is no need for visitors to those areas to undergo drug treatment, he said.

The main post office in Princeton, New Jersey, was closed Friday night after one colony of anthrax -- deemed clinically insignificant -- grew from a swab taken on a mail container called a flat tub.

The tub, which had been taken back and forth from the Hamilton facility, was likely contaminated there, authorities said.

Clinics were set up for those among the approximately 200 workers at the site who wanted to take antibiotics anyway.