MORE than 100 health workers, restaurant and hotel staff and members of the public have been tested for radiation exposure following the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy.

Doctors and nurses in the two London hospitals where Litvinenko was treated, as well as waiting staff at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly and the Millennium hotel in Mayfair, now face a four-day wait for urine tests to show whether they have been contaminated with polonium-210.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) warned that members of the public who were in the sushi restaurant or the Pine bar and restaurant of the Millennium hotel on November 1, when Litvinenko met his contacts on the day he is believed to have been poisoned, could have been contaminated and urged them to call NHS Direct for medical help.

The NHS helpline was yesterday inundated with hundreds of calls from members of the public who feared they were at risk from polonium-210.

Callers included hotel guests and restaurant diners but also those who had not been near these venues but feared the wider spread of the radiation.

NHS Direct was so busy with calls that it is asking members of the public who are not likely to have been directly affected to use the NHS Direct website to avoid clogging up the telephone system.

Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, issued guidance to GPs and hospitals on the symptoms of exposure to the rare form of radiation to prepare them for consultations with contaminated patients.

The Millennium hotel was operating as usual yesterday. Brian Kelly, health and safety manager, said the hotel was completely full.

This weekend, health officials were working non-stop to trace everyone who could have been exposed to the radiation over the 3Å weeks since Litvinenko was poisoned. The HPA pointed out that polonium- 210 is only harmful if it is breathed in, swallowed, or allowed to get into a wound.

Two days after Litvinenko became ill, he was admitted to Barnet hospital in north London. On November 17 he was transferred to the specialist University College London hospital (UCLH) in central London.

Robert Naylor, chief executive of UCLH, said identifying polonium-210 as the poison took three weeks because it was “like looking for a needle in a haystack”.

The polonium-210 was detected only after thousands of other tests were carried out for other diseases, infections and poisons, including other forms of radiation.

Naylor said: “This has been an extremely exhaustive investigation of literally thousands of tests over a long period of time. Nobody would have started off looking for polonium because it has never happened before.

“The tests eventually carried out by the HPA, which identified this polonium, were extremely sensitive.”

The HPA is now examining all surfaces and equipment of the hospital wards where Litvinenko was treated for any remains of polonium-210.

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