A police officer on July 4 stands outside a housing project in Salisbury thought to be connected to a man and woman who were exposed to a nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union. | Jack Taylor/Getty Images U.K. police: 2 more exposed to same nerve agent that sickened spy

For the second time in four months, two people lie critically ill in England’s Salisbury District Hospital after being exposed to a military-grade nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, British police confirmed late Wednesday.

The country’s chief counterterrorism police officer said tests at Britain’s defense laboratory had confirmed what many residents feared — a man and woman in their 40s had been poisoned with the same toxin that almost killed a former Russian spy and his daughter.


“We can confirm that the man and woman have been exposed to the nerve agent Novichok, which has been identified as the same nerve agent that contaminated both Yulia and Sergei Skripal,” said Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu of London’s Metropolitan Police.

Local police declared the case a “major incident” Wednesday, four days after the man and woman were found collapsed at a residential building in Amesbury, eight miles from Salisbury, where the Skripals were poisoned.

Basu said it was not clear whether there was a link between the two cases, and whether the nerve agent came from the same batch that left the Skripals fighting for their lives.

“The possibility that these two investigations might be linked is clearly a line of enquiry for us,” he said, amid speculation that the victims could have been sickened by residue from the poison used on the Skripals.

Basu said it was unclear whether the two were targeted, but there was “nothing in their background to suggest that at all.”

The Skripals’ illness initially baffled doctors after they were found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury. Scientists at the Porton Down defense laboratory concluded they had been poisoned with Novichok, a type of nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

After spending weeks in critical condition, the Skripals were released from the hospital and taken to an undisclosed location for their protection. Doctors say they don’t know the long-term prognosis.

Britain accuses Russia of poisoning the Skripals, a claim Moscow strongly denies. The case sparked a diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West, including the expulsion of hundreds of diplomats from both sides.