Anthrax found at Scott's Antarctic camp

Britain's Princess Royal was a visitor to the hut

Scientists have found spores of the deadly anthrax bacteria in the Antarctic hut used by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott.

The Antarctic Heritage Trust said anthrax tests had proved positive on samples taken from Scott's hut at Cape Evans in McMurdo Sound.

Scott of the Antarctic died in 1913 while returning from the South Pole

Scott used the base as a permanent winter station prior to his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. It was abandoned in 1913 but is now being restored by the trust.

There is no evidence that Scott or his men suffered from the disease or that the spores pose any threat to visitors, the trust said.

But the hut - visited earlier this year by Britain's Princess Royal - has been closed as a precaution.

Pony link

Manchurian ponies and Himalayan mules, or their food, used in Scott's bid to be the first man to reach the South Pole are thought to be the source of the spores as anthrax was endemic in Asia at the time.

Scott and his team reached the South Pole, but found that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it.

Thousands of people have passed through the historic huts... without any cases of confirmed anthrax

Nigel Watson,
Antarctic Heritage Trust

The anthrax was found in the stables at the Cape Evans hut, some 25 kilometres (16 miles) from New Zealand's Scott Base and the neighbouring United States McMurdo Station.

The population at McMurdo balloons to more than 1,000 during the summer months, but it is said they will face no health risks.

The Antarctic Heritage Trust's executive director Nigel Watson said: "Thousands of people have passed through the historic huts since they were rediscovered in the late 1940s without any cases of confirmed anthrax."

The hut has been put off limits to the few researchers currently working at the bases.

Britain's Princess Anne entered the hut, some 1,500 km (938 miles) from the South Pole, in February to help launch a campaign to restore the structures left by early Antarctic explorers.

Spores' longevity

Waikato University scientists visiting the hut earlier this year found the anthrax spores and brought back some of them under quarantine.

Douglas Lush of the New Zealand Ministry of Health said it was no surprise that spores could have survived for 90 years in the frigid conditions.

"Spores can last for many years in the soil and don't pose a threat to humans unless they are inhaled in large quantities or come in contact with open wounds," he said.

Five people in the United States died from the disease last year after contracting it from tainted letters sent after the 11 September attacks.