Swine flu fears hit home

State awaits confirmation on two probable cases, one from S.F. County

Staff and wire reports |

4/29/2009 - 4/29/09

New Mexico has two probable cases of swine flu, and state officials are awaiting confirmation of testing from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gov. Bill Richardson and state Department of Health officials announced Wednesday that preliminary testing by the state found the flu likely in a 1-year-old boy from Santa Fe County and an 18-year-old male from Valencia County.

Both are recovering. The infant was hospitalized, but the teenager wasn't.

No details were available on whether the Santa Fe County case was connected to a report that a Santa Fe High School employee's young child was diagnosed this week with influenza type A.

Erica Landry, a spokeswoman for the Santa Fe School District, said another Santa Fe High student also went home with flulike symptoms Wednesday. "There are no characterizations about the type of flu," Landry said of those cases.

The Valencia County teenager was being home-schooled and did not attend public schools.

State officials said they expect to learn from the CDC as early as Friday whether the two cases are confirmed as swine flu.

"This is a time for concern. This is not a time for panic," Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil said at a news conference in Santa Fe.

Because swine flu is a new virus, the state's testing lab cannot confirm its presence, according to Health Department spokeswoman Deborah Busemeyer. If the lab cannot rule out swine flu in a particular sample, it is sent to the CDC. The state lab will soon receive a kit from the CDC allowing it to do more detailed testing for the swine flu virus.

State officials said they are investigating who has come into contact with the infant and the teenager. The state also doesn't know yet what might have been the possible source of flu exposure for the two cases, including whether the individuals or their families had recently traveled to Mexico or had come into contact with people who recently visited Mexico.

The United States reported its first swine flu death Wednesday, in a toddler from Mexico visiting Texas with his family.

Vigil said antiviral medications will be given to high-risk individuals — such as the very old or young and someone with a chronic illness — who came into contact with the infant and teenager.

State officials declined to release the cities or more specific locations of the two probable cases, citing potential patient confidentiality issues.

The state has established a toll-free hot line where people can call for information about the flu: 866-850-5893. Officials from the Health and Public Education departments will hold a telephone conference call today with public school administrators statewide to brief them about the flu and answer questions.

Vigil emphasized that most people infected with the flu recover without hospitalization.

"We're talking about a disease that almost all of us get from time to time. And we go to bed and get over it, and get back to work and school. And that's what we'll expect in this situation," Vigil said. "This is not the kind of disease that you expect a very high mortality rate."

The Geneva-based World Health Organization on Wednesday raised its alert level for the fast-spreading swine flu to 5, the second-highest level, signaling a global pandemic could be imminent. The move came after the virus spread to at least 10 U.S. states and swept deeper into Europe.

It isn't just swine flu that kills. The CDC estimates 36,000 people die of flu or flu-related complications each year in the United States from whatever flu strains are present.

In New Mexico, 200 to 300 people die each year from flu or its complications. The state recorded 184 flu deaths between Oct. 1 and Tuesday, and the flu season is not over, Busemeyer said.

While vaccines can protect against this season's normal flu strains, the CDC said there's no vaccine for this flu variant.

However, antiviral medications can help.

"We're going to be focusing on treatment of sick individuals if we get confirmed cases," Busemeyer said.

New Mexico has 70,000 doses of the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza and expects 280,000 more doses from the CDC, Busemeyer said. The first shipment is expected this week.

The private health care sector in the state also has "a significant supply" of the drugs, and the Health Department currently is trying to find out how many doses exist there. Busemeyer had no estimate when the count will be finished.

A supercomputer model done by Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2006 plotted the course of a hypothetical avian flu pandemic, showing it lasting three to four months and peaking in two to three months.

The research showed that in a highly mobile society, air travel restrictions did little to stop the spread of the virus, said Tim Germann, a Los Alamos computational biologist who was one of the study's authors.

"It slightly slows down the spread, but it's really almost negligible," he said. "All it takes is a few people to feed the local outbreaks somewhere."

Such ideas as thermal scanning to identify people with fevers isn't effective either, Germann said. People are infectious for 12 to 24 hours before they show symptoms, and some people who have the flu virus never show any symptoms or just mild ones, he said.

Other steps taken in isolation don't do much either, he said.

What works better is a combination of interventions — drugs to combat the flu virus and ways to keep people away from each other, such as telecommuting for work, closing schools, and taking hygienic measures such as people wearing masks and frequently washing their hands, he said.

Researchers are working to develop a vaccine against swine flu. If all goes well, it would be available in about six months, in time for the next flu season, Germann said.

It's unlikely an epidemic would build up through the coming summer in the northern hemisphere, he said, since flu typically is not widespread in the warm months. The southern hemisphere, however, is just entering its winter season.

New Mexican reporter Sue Vorenberg contributed to this story.

Editor's note: A version of this report incorrectly reported that an infant belonging to a school district employee was that of a student. The Santa Fe High School student who went home with flu-like symptoms was found to have allergies and not flu. Please read our follow up story for updated information.