A graduate researcher at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC) in Jackson, Mississippi, was treated for exposure to anthrax on Saturday (August 11), according to a news release from the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

The researcher was working in the Biosafety Level 3 high containment lab on Saturday, August 11, where UMC conducts anthrax research. According to the UMC release, the student inoculated a flask of medium with anthrax cells and, as she attempted to place the flask in the shaker, it broke.

"The student immediately followed the UMC Biosafety Plan for this anthrax lab," said the release, "which includes actions to protect personnel and to ensure the organism does not escape the high-containment lab." UMC officials and the CDC were also notified. The student was treated in the hospital as a precaution and then allowed to go home. "At no time was there a risk of infection to anyone outside the lab," said the release.

Martin Hugh-Jones , an anthrax researcher at Louisiana State and a WHO public health director, wrote in a ProMED-mail post (an electronic listserve put out by the International Society for Infectious Diseases) that with so many labs now studying Anthrax, and the particularly virulent "Ames" strain, these incidents are likely to occur. "I do commend the University for rapidly reporting this unfortunate event," he told The Scientist in an Email.