Local post office workers for the most part are not taking any special measures, besides common sense guidelines, to protect themselves against the (unlikely) possibility of anthrax in the packages the handle.

Postmaster General Clevelyn Critchlow told the media at a conference yesterday that local postal workers had been asking for latex gloves and masks.

"They have been provided with gloves, not masks," he said. The post office has been in contact with their international postal organisations for guidance and gas masks have not been advised, he said.

The gloves provided are not required work wear.

Mr. Critchlow said that the workers' concerns had been "alleviated to some extent" and not all workers were using the gloves provided.

He stressed that most mail coming into Bermuda pass through other post offices abroad and do not come here directly.

So Bermuda will benefit from preventive measures taken abroad, such as irradiation of mail which kills off anthrax spores.

Dr. Roslyn Bascombe-Adams, emergency physician at the King Edward Memorial Hospital, addressed postal workers last night at a wide ranging talk on biological warfare preparedness given at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Hamilton.

She emphasised that local mail is sorted by hand as opposed to mechanically, which reduces considerably the risk of anthrax getting airborne through the sorting process.

Mr. Critchlow told The Royal Gazette earlier this week that he had met with the local postal worker's unions to discuss their concerns.

And when asked what special measures were being taken he said: "How can you change anything?

"You can't expect Bermuda to respond like the United States has done because we just don't have the equipment they have," Mr. Critchlow added.

He also said that too much talk about an almost non-existent threat was "making everybody paranoid. It's making me paranoid".

Yesterday he was decidedly less anxious.

When asked what kind of toll the war against terrorism was taking on him personally in his role as Postmaster General, he joked: "Dealing with the Post Office is always a strain, that's why I'm called Postmaster General."

But he appealed for an end to rumours.

It was stressed at the conference that the likelihood of Bermuda being targeted with biological weapons was next to zero.