Anthrax confirmation in Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam -- A Vietnamese government scientist says a sample of white power discovered in the office of a BP joint venture in Ho Chi Minh City has tested positive for anthrax.

The powder was found at the offices of BP Petco on October 31 and sent for tests at the city's Pasteur Institute.

Asked by Reuters news agency to confirm if the sample had tested positive for anthrax, the government scientist, who did not want to be identified, replied: "Yes."

"We have to wait for the Health Ministry's instruction on how to handle this case."

The scientist said other suspicious samples had been sent for testing from other places in Vietnam in recent weeks, "but we found no other case."

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John Kilgour, the general manager of BP Petco, said BP had yet to see confirmation of findings from the tests, although company representatives were meeting with officials from the Pasteur Institute and the Health Ministry.

BP had not been provided with any definitive methodology from the Pasteur Institute, and until it did so, it considered any findings "purely speculative," he added.

Another sample of the powder had also been sent to another laboratory in Ho Chi Minh City, the Diag Center International, he said.

Four fatalities

A director of the Diag center, Murielle Chiron, told Reuters the tests there would take another two days.

The office of BP Petco, which markets and sells oil products, has been shut temporarily pending the outcome of the tests. The corporate headquarters of BP is based in London.

BP's Kilgour said there was no indication of any illness associated with the powder, which had been found in a piece of folded paper under a meeting room table at the firm's office near the center of Ho Chi Minh City.

In the United States, several letters laced with powdery anthrax bacterial spores have been sent through the mail since the September 11 hijack attacks on New York and Washington.

Four people have died and authorities say 17 people have contracted anthrax.

Meanwhile, a letter sent to the U.S. Consulate in the Pakistani city of Lahore tested positive in initial tests for anthrax and is being sent to the United States for further examination.