The New York Times said yesterday a letter sent to its Rio de Janeiro bureau has tested positive for anthrax.
The newspaper said in a statement that the letter, postmarked in New York on Oct. 5, was received at the bureau on Tuesday.
An employee became suspicious because the letter, which had a typed label for the address, bore no return address.
As a result, it was not opened, but placed instead in a plastic bag and turned over to local law-enforcement officials.
A test on the letter came back positive for anthrax yesterday.
Further tests are planned, but the four employees at the bureau, headed by correspondent Larry Rohter, were given the antibiotic Cipro as a precaution.
The results of tests on the employees are still pending.
The discovery came a week after Times reporter Judith Miller, an expert on biological warfare, received a letter that contained a threat and a mysterious white powder.
The newspaper evacuated its third-floor newsroom while tests were conducted on the powder and employees. The tests came back negative and company officials said it was baby powder.
The anthrax scare spread to Kenya on Thursday, when a Nairobi doctor received a package from a relative in Atlanta that tested positive for anthrax.