An anthrax expert has given an insight into the preparations already under way in Bradford in the event of there ever being a chemical attack.

Dr Paul McWhinney is one of the few people in Britain to have treated a victim of the killer virus within the past decade.

The Bradford Royal Infirmary consultant, a specialist in infectious diseases, was one of the district's key people called in when contingency plans were drawn up in the advent of a chemical attack on Britain, following last month's New York terrorist attacks. The meeting, which involved the district's key emergency and planning authorities, is an automatic response to any possible attack.

In August last year, Dr McWhinney treated the first anthrax case in Britain for five years when textile worker Fazal Mahmood Dad was admitted to BRI.

It was only thanks to his immediate diagnosis, despite never having seen a case before, that the patient lived.

The most common form of anthrax in this country is cutaneous which infects the skin, as with Mr Dad. A second type is contracted through spores in the air - like the cases in Florida - and the third is carried in infected meat.

Dr McWhinney said: "You have to treat someone quickly because if you delay there is a very high mortality rate, about 70 per cent. Fortunately anthrax is not something that can be easily passed from one person to another, which is why with the case last year we did not test the man's colleagues but gave them advice leaflets. The problem is, in a sense, with a possible attack like this that, depending on the scale, you can never really be wholly prepared for it and it would be a problem to deal with. But I don't think there will be huge attacks."

The Home Secretary, David Blunkett yesterday confirmed that the British and American governments were working together to ensure adequate supplies of vaccines to anthrax.

The FBI today launched a criminal investigation after a third person working at a Florida publishers tested positive for anthrax. A British-born American employed there died of the disease but experts still insist that in the advent of a chemical war, terrorists would not use anthrax to commit mass murder because of the massive amounts needed.

Fears are growing of a bioterrorist attack being launched on America in the wake of the suicide attacks and have been fuelled by the anthrax outbreak.

But an FBI spokesman said authorities had no evidence the anthrax was created by a terrorist group and added: "this is not a time for premature conclusions and inaccurate reporting".