Anthrax exposure temporarily closes hospital ER

March 25, 2011

girl is in the hospital right now after possibly being exposed to anthrax. the girl showed up with flu-like symptoms at lovelace's westside hospital, and almost imdiately, part of the hospital was shut down, we are getting answs tonight from the state health department. but our team coverage begins with stuart dyson who is outside the hospital. here's what we know, this morning, 10 year old girl came to the hospital with those symptoms and was tested for possible exposure to the deadly disease anthrax. for a short time the hospital basically shut down its emergency room to any new patients arriving and health officials screened patients already in there for any possible exposure or contact with the little girl... they found none. while that was going on, people inside the hospital were calling us to ask us what was going on. at abou12:15 the hospital re- opened and after the state health department gave it the go ahead. since then it has been business as usual here. as far as we can see. so right now the girl remains inside, in isolation. live at lovelace, stuart dyson kob eyewitness news 4. one of our big questions of course was how exactly was the girl exposed to anthrax? we have some new information from the state health department tonight. gadi schwartz continues our team coverage live from santa fe. the health department has traced this anthrax scare back to a researcher - working at unm who became worried about her daughter being exposed to anthrax. according to the department of health - at some point this week the researcher who had been working with a non - disease strain of bacteria that causes anthrax. after some experiments the researcher used her car to transport some equipment that had been used to a private company. her 10 year old daughter also rode in the car later that day. and when her daughter started experiencing flu like symptoms- the researcher took her to the hospital. the health department says thats why they took so many precaution "you never know when you are going to get the real one and so thats why we have these systems in place thats why our state laboratory is set up to do definitve testing." the health department says this anthrax scare could be a lesson for researchers when it comes to handling and transporting equipment. the health department tests have shown the anthrax at the research lab to be the kind that does not cause disease. however, they say it will take several days for the girl's tests results to come back. we will stay on top of this story- and let you know as soon as the test results are released.