US Shipped Anthrax Sample to Japan in 2005 - Pentagon

A sample of anthrax was sent to a US military base in Japan in 2005, adding the island nation to the growing list of foreign countries exposed to the deadly disease, the US Department of Defense announced in a statement.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Defense Department also stated it was “impossible to determine” whether the anthrax sample sent from the Dugway Proving Ground, a US Army facility in Utah, to the military base in Japan was a live virus.

“As part of a Department of Defense (DoD) training and proficiency-testing program developed to protect DoD personnel and the Japanese people against threats posed by biological agents, a sample of presumably inactivated Bacillus anthracis [anthrax] was sent to Camp Zama in 2005.”

The anthrax sample sent to Japan was destroyed in 2009, resulting in “no cases of infection,” according to the Defense Department.

The Camp Zama laboratory concluded there were “no remaining proficiency samples” of the anthrax disease at the facility, after an inventory was conducted in June 2015.

The announcement comes after the Defense Department admitted earlier in June 2015 to unintentionally sending live anthrax spores to up to 68 laboratories in 19 US states.

South Korea, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom were recently added to the list of likely recipients of the anthrax bacteria.

Also in June 2015, the Defense Department announced it may have failed to kill the anthrax spores prior to shipping them to laboratories. However, it added that the anthrax shipments pose no risk to the public, as the bacteria were in low doses and in liquid form.