On Wednesday, the US authorities said they were investigating into the anthrax samples shipment to laboratories in eleven US states, Australia and to Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, from a Pentagon laboratory in Utah. Instead of deactivated samples, the packages sent between March 2014 and March 2015 contained live spores.
"Carter extended his apology to Minister Han for the incident and vowed to take appropriate measures to prevent a recurrence," a source in the Korean Ministry of National Defense said as quoted by the Korea Times.
According to a statement, published by the Osan Air Base on Wednesday, 22 personnel “may have been exposed” to the hazardous material, but nobody has shown signs of a disease so far.
US Department of Defense (DoD) spokesperson Colonel Steven Warren told Sputnik in a statement Wednesday that DoD used the anthrax samples to develop a field-based test to “identify biological threats in the environment.”
