Report: Army facility also sent live anthrax sample to Australia

The Army facility that accidentally sent out live anthrax this month also delivered a live sample to Australia in 2008, a defense official told Reuters. 

The discovery was made during an investigation into the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, which the Pentagon this week revealed may have sent live anthrax to nine military and private labs in the United States, along with a lab at a U.S. military base in South Korea.  

{mosads}The Pentagon has declined to name the U.S. labs, which are located in California, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas and Wisconsin. The sample in South Korea was found at the Osan Air Base. 

The defense official said he did not know what kind of facility in Australia received the sample sent in 2008. The samples were supposed to be inactive, and be for the purposes of training and research. 

The Pentagon says there are no suspected infections or risk to the general public from the recent breach, but 22 lab personnel in South Korea who might have been exposed to the sample are undergoing precautionary treatments of antibiotics and vaccines. 

Pentagon officials said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating the more recent shipment of the live sample, which was transported through FedEx. They say all samples have been destroyed.