Two British poisoned with a Novichok neurological agent near the place where the Russian spy was hit

AMESBURY: Two British citizens are seriously ill after being exposed to Novichok, the same nerve agent that overthrew a former Russian agent and his daughter in March, Britain's top counterterrorism official said on Wednesday.

The couple, a 44-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man, was hospitalized after being found sick Saturday in Amesbury, a few miles from Salisbury where former double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked in March.

"I received test results from Porton Down (military research center) that show that both people were exposed to the Novichok neurotropic agent," Neil Basu told reporters, the highest ranking in the United Kingdom.

Britain accused Russia of poisoning the Skripals with Novichok – a nerve agent developed by the Soviet army during the Cold War – in what is the first known offensive use of the Skripals. such a chemical weapon on European soil since the Second World War.

Russia has denied any involvement in their poisoning.

The United Kingdom's anti-terrorism police is currently conducting the investigation, although Basu stated that it was not clear how the two people came into contact with the nerve agent or if they had been specifically targeted.

"I have no information or evidence that they have been targeted in any way," Basu said. "There is nothing in their bottom to suggest that at all."

Amesbury is located 11 km north of Salisbury, where Skripal – a former Russian military intelligence colonel who betrayed dozens of agents of the British MI6 spy service – and his daughter were found unaware on a bench in March. 4.

About 100 anti-terrorism officers work on the case and the police cordoned off at least five different zones, including a park and property in Salisbury, as well as a pharmacy and a church community center Baptist at Amesbury.

The March attack provoked the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War as allies in Europe and the United States, with the advice of Prime Minister Theresa May according to which Moscow was responsible or had lost control of the nerve agent.

The mystery surrounds the attack and the motive is not clear, as it is the logic of the use of such an exotic nervous agent that has obvious links with the Soviet Army during the Cold War.

Russia, currently hosting the Football World Cup, denied any involvement in the March incident and suggested that Britain had led the attack to stir up hysteria anti-Moscow.

Moscow also fought back by expelling Western diplomats, questioning Britain over how Britain knew Russia was responsible and offering rival interpretations, including that it 's likely that Russia was responsible for it. was acting a conspiracy of the British secret service. Russian officials have asked why Russia would like to attack an aging defector who was pardoned and exchanged for a Kremlin – approved spy exchange in 2010.

NOVICHOK STILL

Chiefs of health said Wednesday that the risk to the public was low, although the exposure of two people apparently unrelated to espionage or the former Soviet Union would stoke fears that traces of the nerve agent remain in the area.

"As the country's chief medical officer, I want to rebadure the public that the risk to the general public remains low," told reporters Sally Davies, chief medical officer of England.

Prime Minister May's spokesman said the government's emergency committee had met to discuss the incident. Interior Secretary Sajid Javid will chair a meeting of the Emergency Response Committee on Thursday.

"The working theory is currently that this exhibition was accidental, rather than a second attack on the model of that on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury earlier this year," Javid said.

After the poisoning of Skripal, police investigators in protective gear against hazardous materials traveled through the ancient city of Salisbury's English Cathedral. Basu warned that police in protective gear would return to the area.

Paramedics were called Saturday morning at a house in Amesbury after the woman, named by the media under the name Dawn Sturgess, collapsed and returned later in the day when the man, Charlie Rowley, also got sick.

The two people, who are being treated at Salisbury District Hospital, were reported to have initially taken heroin or crack in a contaminated lot, the police said.

But tests showed that they had been poisoned with Novichok.

"We are not able to tell if the nerve agent came from the same batch that the Skripals were exposed to," said Basu. "The possibility that these two investigations may be related is clearly an investigation for us."

The hospital is where the Skripals also spent weeks in critical condition before slowly recovering and being discharged.

Yulia told Reuters in May: "We are so lucky to have survived this badbadination attempt, our recovery has been slow and extremely painful."

Russia said that she did not possess such neurotoxic agents, that she was not developing Novichok, and President Vladimir Putin dismissed as absurd the idea that Moscow would have poisoned Skripal and her daughter. (Report by Andy Bruce and Kate Holton in London, editorial by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden, edited by G Crosse)