Anthrax spores found in Scott's winter base

"Safe from anthrax," said an article in The Antarctic Sun at the height of the postal attacks in the US last year.

"The chance of anthrax coming down here is pretty slim," Christine Hush, a postmistress at the McMurdo US Antarctic programme, was quoted as saying. Little did she know that the deadly spores had been held on ice around the corner for 90 years.

Scientists say they have found anthrax spores in the Antarctic hut used by the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott at Cape Evans in McMurdo Sound.

The Antarctic Heritage Trust said anthrax tests had proved positive on samples taken from Scott's hut, which he used as his winter base before setting off on his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole.

There is no evidence that Scott or any of his entourage contracted the disease, but the Manchurian ponies and Himalayan mules accompanying them came from regions where anthrax was rife.

The spores were found in the stables at the Cape Evans hut, 16 miles from the US McMurdo Station, where the population grows to more than 1,000 in the summer.

The hut has been closed to researchers, though the trust does not think the spores pose a threat to visitors. The anthrax was identified by visiting students from Waikato University. Douglas Lush, of the New Zealand Health Ministry, said the bacteria survived easily in freezing conditions.

Five Americans died last year after contracting anthrax from letters laced with spores.