Live Anthrax Spores Mistakenly Shipped to 9 US States & SoKor Base, The Pentagon Warns

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The Pentagon confirmed on Wednesday that they have mistakenly shipped live anthrax instead of dead samples to nine U.S. state labs and one in South Korea. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) together with the Department of Defense (DOD) is currently investigating the matter.

Dugway Proving Ground, a Salt Lake City army facility in Utah mistakenly shipped a batch of anthrax spores—believed to be dead—to laboratories in nine states, including a military lab in South Korea, according to David Martin of CBS News.  

The "dead" anthrax was part of a new diagnostic test to identify biological threats, according to the Pentagon.

Reuters has learned that four U.S. civilians are currently being placed on preventive measures called post-exposure prophylaxis, after facing "minimal risk" for "doing procedures that sent the agent into the air."

The civilians are in Delaware, Texas and are receiving anthrax vaccine, antibiotics, or both.

The states that received the live anthrax samples from the DOD are Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Maryland, California, Delaware, Texas, and California.

Anthrax refers to the bacterium Bacillus anthracis and it can cause a serious illness in humans. It is airborne, the mode of disease transmission that is considered to be the most fatal way to contract the disease, according to Mayo Clinic.

The investigation started when a lab in Maryland discovered that their package contained live samples of the anthrax bacteria. The CDC was immediately notified and worked together with the Defense Department, according to Time.

"Out of an abundance of caution, (the Defense Department) has stopped the shipment of this material from its labs pending completion of the investigation," said Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for Pentagon.

"All samples involved in the investigation will be securely transferred to CDC" or affiliated labs "for further testing," said CDC's Kathy Harden via Reuters.

Additionally, the CDC has also sent people to the mentioned labs to conduct on-site investigations.

"At this time we do not suspect any risk to the general public," Harden added.

There are four common ways to contract anthrax infection. Exposure can come from having the bacteria enter your body through an open wound, eating infected meat, inhalation of anthrax spores and the most recent is through injection of illegal drugs.

However, anthrax is not considered contagious. There are rare cases where person-to-person transmission is possible through the discharge of an infected open wound that's transmitted to another person with skin lesions, noted CDC.

Anthrax treatment is usually a 60-day course of antibiotics. You can either be prescribed with a single antibiotic or a combination depending on age, health and how you were infected by the bacteria.