Woman first to die from swine flu in Maricopa County

A Maricopa County woman in her late 40s died from swine flu complications.

It is the first death in Arizona and the fourth nationwide as a result of the H1N1 influenza.

The woman had a chronic lung condition before she got the flu. The swine flu has now turned deadly in Arizona, but Maricopa County health officials say it will not change the way they monitor the pandemic.

Dr. Bob England, with Maricopa County, say, "Doesn’t change a thing. We knew this was coming and unfortunately …”

It brings the nationwide total to four deaths from the swine flu. Two-hundred-forty people have contracted the virus in Arizona but the rest of those cases are said to be mild.

Doctors say we need to keep things in perspective.

Dr. Sam Benjamin explains, "How many people are dying every day from not wearing seatbelts, diabetes and heart disease?"

Not to mention the 36,000 Americans who die annually from the regular flu. Now doctors statewide are calling Arizona's first swine flu death unfortunate, but not unexpected and also say it is not a sign for the public to panic.

Dr. Benjamin adds, “It's a tragedy, but people shouldn't be walking around with masks on."

The county is not releasing details about the woman who died.

49 cases of Swine Flu now reported in Arizona

State health officials say the number of confirmed cases of swine flu in Arizona is now at 49 - up from the previous figure of 17.

Arizona Department of Health spokeswoman Laura Oxley says the new confirmed cases were sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week and took a while to identify because of the backlog there.

Arizona has an additional 150 to 200 possible cases of swine flu at the CDC for testing and Oxley says the number of confirmed cases will certainly increase.

She says the state laboratory hopes to start testing its own cases on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, students at three Phoenix-area schools that were closed because of the swine flu returned to class Tuesday.

Moon Mountain Elementary School in northwest Phoenix was closed as of Thursday, and the Tarwater Elementary and Hartford Sylvia Encinas Elementary schools in the Chandler Unified School District were closed starting Friday. One student at each of the three schools tested positive.

All three schools were ordered closed for seven days.

Ten public schools in Nogales closed for a week, starting Monday, after one student tested positive _ even though the elementary school student had recovered before the closures were announced. Santa Cruz County health officials had recommended closing only the school the child attends and one neighboring school.

In Nogales, barber Rene Valencia said his 14-year-old eighth-grader would be having a vacation this week. While he isn't worried about his son getting into trouble or being exposed to the flu while hanging around home or with friends, Valencia said he thought school officials overreacted.

Officials with the Tucson and Marana unified districts, which each had one middle school student with a confirmed swine flu case, and on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, where two high school students were among four positive cases, did not close schools.

In a letter distributed Monday through Maricopa County school districts, Dr. Bob England recommended against any more school closures - barring a significant cluster of cases in a school.

He also said he was not recommending that school events such as proms, field trips or graduations be canceled.

"It appears that the virus is already broadly spread in the community,'' he said. "Therefore, a handful of individual school dismissals will not help to slow its spread.''

He added that closing all schools for a time might help but the disease doesn't seem severe enough to merit the disruptions.

SWINE FLU LINKS:

Preparedness - http://www.wearepublichealth.org

CDC web site on Swine Flu - http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

Statewide - http://www.azdhs.gov

Maricopa County - http://www.maricopa.gov/Public_Health/

Moon Mountain parents and students are on edge

Student who became Arizona's first confirmed swine flu patient has fully recovered and returned to class; parents not reassured.

Moon Mountain Elementary School, off 19th Ave. south of Thunderbird Rd. in north Phoenix, dismissed early on Wednesday. However, it was the Washington Elementary School District's normal early-dismissal day. By that point it had been determined that the school would be closed for a week as a precaution, even though health officials said the 8-year-old boy, who missed most of last week with the disease, had recovered and returned to classes on Monday.

Parents who talked with KFYI News said they received a letter that was sent home with their student urging the parents to make sure their kids wash their hands regularly, cover their sneezes and coughs, and refrain from associating with other children from the school in case anyone has been infected. One parent said "that kinds makes you panic."

Another woman, the parent of a girl who previously attended Moon Mountain and has moved on to nearly Mountain Sky Middle School, said many Mountain Sky students have younger siblings or friends at Moon Mountain, and wonders whether the middle school should also be closed as a precaution. She added that her daughter has read about the swine flu outbreak on her computer, worried about what might happen if it came to her school, and asked whether that would mean that she might die. "I don't know what to tell her," the mother said.

A Moon Mountain student, the same age as the boy who contracted swine flu, said she's "kinda nervous and scared, and my other classmates were scared too 'cuz they might get it. So I was kinda cautious about how I, like, hugged somebody."

Does Arizona have enough antivirals for the flu?

Arizona's estimated 258,000 treatment courses of antivirals would cover about 4 percent of the state's population.

Public health officials say Arizona has enough courses of antiviral medicines to respond to swine flu cases, even though the state's stockpile of flu-treatment doses are lower than the recommended level.

Arizona's estimated 258,000 treatment courses of antivirals would cover about 4 percent of the state's population. State health department spokeswoman Laura Oxley said Arizona has plenty of doses and pointed out that the treatment courses are for people who are extremely ill and aren't intended as a way to prevent an infection.

The state was supplementing its 58,000 treatment courses with an estimated 200,000 from the federal government's strategic reserve. The 200,000 figure represents a quarter of Arizona's full allocation from the reserve.

State and local health officials believe they will not need to request more from the national stockpile. Officials say not everyone with the flu will need the treatment. They anticipate a drop in illnesses as regular flu season ends and summer approaches.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that each state have enough antiviral medicine on hand to treat 25 percent of its population. But a survey by The Associated Press of all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that 29 states - including Arizona - were below that mark.

So far, Arizona has had four confirmed cases of swine flu. Test results in 52 more suspected cases that were sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevent were expected in the coming days.

The four confirmed cases were found in school-age children in Maricopa County. The cases led to seven-day closures at three elementary schools, one in Phoenix and two in Chandler.

Public health officials in Arizona say it appears the swine flu that has spread across the nation in the past week isn't any more severe than normal influenza.

One hundred forty-one swine flu cases have been reported in 19 U.S. states. The only reported death in the U.S. as a result of swine flu was a Mexican child who was visiting Texas with his family.

Health officials said people should treat the swine flu strain like any other flu - contact your personal doctor, and avoid spreading the virus by staying home and covering sneezes and coughs. Patients should seek additional medical help if fever persists or spikes, breathing is difficult or other severe symptoms develop.