With the anthrax scare growing, fire departments, hazardous materials teams and environmental health officials around the country are racing to buy thousands of test kits that can quickly detect anthrax, draining supplies.
Alexeter Technologies, in Wheeling, one of the two major suppliers of the testing equipment, has run out of a stock and estimates that it will take four to six weeks to fill a backlog of orders.
15-minute tests
The death of a Florida photo editor earlier this month coupled with a relatively small number of other confirmed anthrax cases has touched off a flood of reports from people fearful that powdery substances they have found might be anthrax.
The death of the photo editor “shot our activity through the roof,” said Tom Fryzel, marketing manager for Alexeter, which sells testing strips that can detect anthrax in 15 minutes, as well as $3,500 machines to ensure test results are accurate. “We had a three-month stock of systems and tests, and the stock disappeared in less than two weeks,” Fryzel said.
A limited number of machines may become available by the end of the week, but most communities will have to wait up to six weeks for their orders, he said.
The Maryland-based New Horizons Diagnostics Corp., which also makes rapid-result testing strips for anthrax, got 1,000 testing kits on Monday. They were gone by Wednesday.
“It’s been incredible. We have been working around the clock,” said Randy Bright, a director at the EAI Corp. in Maryland that distributes the testing equipment for New Horizons. Emergency response officials have been flying and driving to Maryland to pick up testing supplies, he said. Another 500 kits should be available Thursday, Bright said, and New Horizons is gearing up to produce 10,000 more.
Many communities already have testing kits, but supplies are dwindling as nervous citizens react to news reports about anthrax in Florida, New York and Washington, D.C.
“Because of all of the anthrax scares, the supply of those kits in the state of Illinois, both at the local and the state levels, is exhausted or becoming exhausted,” said Mike Chamness, director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.
State supply dwindling
Chamness figures there are 100 or fewer kits remaining at the state level, including the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the secretary of state’s bomb squad and the National Guard’s civil support team, which uses a different version.
The state recently ordered 500 more, and is now doubling that order to 1,000. Alexeter has told the state to expect the order to take two to three weeks to fill, but the state has asked or quicker delivery. The state has also contacted the Federal Emergency Management Agency asking for assistance in hurrying the supplies to agencies in need.
“It really isn’t critical,” Chamness said. “It has no life-safety implications whatsoever. But it allows someone to get a field test negative and know that they’re not dealing with something toxic.”
Fryzel, of Alexeter, said testing can still be done the old-fashioned way, by taking a sample to a lab for a full analysis. But that process can take 24 to 48 hours and can create a backlog at labs.
For that reason, Chamness said the State of Illinois has ordered that any state agency wanting to use an anthrax test kit must first clear it through the state’s emergency operations center.
“Even if the whole state ran out of these, there is no life-safety issue here,” Chamness said, adding that the tests give a “very preliminary indication.”
“It’s an item that’s very useful but it’s not critical.”
Chicago has kits
The City of Chicago still has kits on hand. “We don’t run out of things like that,” said Dennis Gault, a Fire Department spokesman. He would not discuss how many kits the city currently has, saying it was a security issue.
Alexeter is urging communities to share testing equipment until supplies come in. Terry Mastandrea, president of the Lake County Fire Chiefs Association, said the county has a supply of testing strips, as well as two of the machines that read results, and has been sharing.
John Lumpkin, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said there should not be an over-reliance on these tests. “These kits are not a substitute for good police work,” he said. He said the tests are too imprecise to rely solely on them.
“We’re still learning,” he said. “The whole nation is still learning how to deal with these incidents.”
