LONDON (Reuters) - The rash of American anthrax cases triggered panics, hoaxes and hypochondria around the world on Tuesday, but not a single case of the disease or of contaminated materials was confirmed outside U.S. borders.Several mail scares hit Washington as police at the Capitol confirmed that a letter sent to the office of Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle contained anthrax bacteria.(Read photo caption below)
The United Arab Emirates embassy, ABC News and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs each reported receiving suspicious mail and called police.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said ``so far we have found no direct link to organized terrorism'' in the cases of anthrax poisoning across the country, but such a link could not be ruled out.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said one man had been charged with lying to federal agents about an anthrax hoax and anyone believed involved in a hoax would be prosecuted.
In New York, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said no new traces of anthrax were found in searches of media companies, ordered after two cases were confirmed at TV news organizations in the city, one of them the 7-month-old infant of an ABC-TV News Producer.
In Britain, three people who had worked in buildings in the United States where anthrax was discovered last week were given the all clear. ``All three have tested negative,'' a spokesman for Britain's Public Health Laboratory Service said.
Two of the three were linked to the Florida cases and the third to the Rockefeller Center in New York. Four people in the United States have contracted anthrax, one of whom has died.
Speculation is rife that the outbreaks of a disease rarely seen naturally in humans, but used in biological weapons because of the ease with which its bacteria can be cultured and stored, result from a deliberate attack linked to the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Domingo Aguirre, a worker at Mexico City airport's central mail sorting facility wears a surgical mask as he classifies recently arrived international mail October 16, 2001. Aguirre said he had bought the mask himself to try to protect himself after the spate of anthrax spores sent in the mail in the United States. (Andrew Winning/Reuters)