Missing Plague Accounted For
FBI Accounts for All Bacteria Samples Reported Missing From Texas Lab
From Wire ReportsL U B B O C K, Texas, Jan. 15
— All vials of bubonic plague reported missing from Texas Tech University Health Science Center have been accounted for, officials said today.
About 30 vials containing samples of the lethal bacteria were thought to have disappeared from Texas Tech University.
"We have accounted for all those missing vials and we have determined there is no danger to public safety whatsoever," said Guadelupe Gonzalez, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas office.
Gonzalez declined to say whether the material had been stolen or merely misplaced. A criminal investigation into the matter was continuing, he said.
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal's Web site, quoting unidentified law enforcement sources, said the vials were noticed missing earlier this week, but the incident was not reported to police until Tuesday. Sixty investigators from various agencies converged on the medical school campus, the newspaper said.
The school said the research was being conducted by Dr. Thomas Butler, chief of its infectious disease division, who has been studying the plague for more than 25 years.
White House officials had been briefed on the plague reports, said spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Disease Treatable With Antibiotics
Bubonic plague is an infectious disease of animals and humans caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis. People usually get it from being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an infected animal.
The disease can be treated with antibiotics. Health officials say 10 to 20 people in the United States contract plague each year. About one in seven U.S. cases is fatal.
Lubbock, Texas, is in northwest Texas, south of Amarillo.
Plague outbreaks have killed about 200 million people in the past 1,500 years. The most infamous, the Black Death, started in 1347, killing 25 million people in Europe and 13 million in the Middle East and China within five years.
Plague — along with anthrax, smallpox and a handful of other deadly agents — is on a short watch list distributed by the federal government, which wants to make sure doctors and hospitals recognize a bioterror attack quickly.
But plague's symptoms can be difficult to spot. The disease is characterized by swelling, weakness and fever, symptoms that can signal anything from flu to West Nile virus.
Bubonic plague is not contagious. But left untreated, it can transform into pneumonic plague, a more dangerous disease that can be spread from person to person.
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