By Matt Leingang
Enquirer staff writer

Bonni Manies, spokeswoman for Cincinnati's main post office, with a letter sorting machine and its new vacuum system overhead, part of a new anthrax detecting system. The Enquirer/TONY JONES

Cincinnati's main post office will be equipped in late September with a new safety device that checks for deadly anthrax spores.

The technology is being rolled out to all of the U.S. Postal Service's 283 distribution and processing centers across the country by the end of 2005 in response to concerns about current terrorism and to the fatal attacks of late 2001, in which anthrax was sent through the mail.

With 1,000 employees, the Cincinnati processing center on Dalton Avenue in the West End is one of the largest in the United States. It handles as many as 7 million to 9 million pieces of mail a day for portions of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

"It's frightening to even think about," said Bonni Manies, a spokeswoman with the Cincinnati postal district. "But we hope that we never have another postal employee die again."

In fall 2001, five people were killed and 13 others sickened in four states and the District of Columbia when anthrax-laced letters were sent to two U.S. senators and a number of media outlets. Two of the dead were postal workers who were infected while processing mail. No one has been arrested in those cases.

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WHAT IS ANTHRAX?

Anthrax is an acute infectious disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Weaponized anthrax spores are dispersed by aerosol, and are highly lethal to humans. Anthrax has been produced as a biological weapons agent, and is suspected as a potential agent for use by bioterrorists. What are the symptoms of anthrax? Symptoms of disease vary depending on how the disease was contracted, but symptoms usually occur within seven days. When inhaled, initial symptoms may resemble a common cold. After several days, the symptoms may progress to severe breathing problems and shock. Inhalation anthrax is usually fatal. Is there a treatment for anthrax? Doctors can prescribe effective antibiotics. To be effective, treatment should be initiated early. If left untreated, the disease can be fatal. Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The biohazard detection system works like this:

As letters speed through sorting machines and pass under an air collection hood, air samples are transmitted through a hose to a cartridge to see if they match the DNA of anthrax spores.

If anthrax were detected, the mail center would be shut down. Emergency responders - Cincinnati fire, police and public health officials, including the FBI - would be called to isolate the contaminated mail. Postal employees would be sent to a building outside of the distribution center and given advice on decontamination and antibiotic treatment.

Fifteen U.S. postal centers, including one in Cleveland, were equipped with the biohazard detection system at a cost of $3.7 million last year as part of a pilot program. So far, the system has not picked up any trace of anthrax at those sites.

Postal centers in Cincinnati and Columbus are part of a Phase One rollout, which is expected to cost $175 million. Money for Phase Two, which will complete the project, has yet to be approved.

Postal officials acknowledge that the system is not perfect:

• It cannot prevent anthrax attacks - only detect them.

• The test recognizes anthrax only, at least for now. Plans call for updating the technology so that it can detect other dangerous pathogens, but officials have declined to discuss which ones.

• The biohazard equipment is designed to test only first-class mail collected from mailboxes. Packages don't go through the "pinch rollers" that squeeze air from letters as they go through sorting machines. But officials say anthrax in a package is unlikely to spill out and expose large numbers of people.

• While the system collects air continuously, testing is conducted once every hour, meaning that an anthrax letter could slip by unnoticed for short period of time and contaminate part of the building.

Still, officials say early detection will prevent a contaminated letter from leaving the building and prevent widespread exposure among employees. As an added protection, the government already has installed a new ventilation system that sucks up air around the sorting machines, filtering out particles.

Some postal workers say they have mixed feelings about the anthrax-sniffing technology.

"It's one of those things that we hope never has to be used. If it does, we hope it works the way they say it will," said Tim Breen, president of the Cincinnati chapter of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents clerks, maintenance workers and truck drivers in the main processing center.

E-mail mleingang@enquirer.com