There has been an unexpected 24-hour delay in getting samples taken from sites of Irish anthrax scares across to Britain for testing. Health officials in the two jurisdictions had not agreed who was to receive the samples when they arrived in England.
An Air Corps Beechcraft aircraft sat waiting to take off last night from Baldonnel Airport and left only after discussions between civil servants overcame the difficulty, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Children.
"There were problems with the UK accepting [the samples] from their end and apparently this problem has been resolved," she said last night.
This was confirmed by the Department of Defence, which is responsible for collecting and transporting the possibly infectious samples under the terms of the Department of Health and Children's new plans for handling suspected anthrax scares. "It was to make arrangements for it to be collected at the other end. It didn't really cause a difficulty but it did cause more delay than we would have wanted," a Department of Defence spokesman said last night.
The Defence Forces are responsible for collecting samples and transporting them for testing. Nineteen samples were sent from Baldonnel last night bound for the UK's centre for chemical and biological warfare research at Porton Down in Salisbury. The Army also delivered samples to Cherry Orchard Hospital.
Samples were taken from all 11 of the anthrax scare sites reported on Wednesday and from Trinity College and University College Dublin yesterday. "In most cases what has been found was an envelope or a container with powder in it," he said.
Sources indicate that it was known very early on that some of the scares were hoaxes.
