State officials said they are well-prepared to deal with a potential swine flu epidemic, but warned people to take precautionary measures to help keep the spread of the disease under control.
The state’s first swine flu case was discovered Wednesday, when test results taken from an 8-year-old student at Moon Mountain Elementary School in North Phoenix revealed the child had the illness.
Maricopa County Public Health Director Bob England said the case was not serious, and he does not expect the majority of cases discovered in upcoming weeks to be serious either.
“We’re not overly worried,” England said. “So far, all of the cases in the United States have behaved like the regular flu.”
The child has already recovered, but the school has been shut down for seven calendar days as a precautionary measure, England added.
“If someone has been exposed [to swine flu], they will develop symptoms within seven days,” he said.
Brewer said state, local and national agencies are working closely together in the wake of the state’s first-known swine-flu case to prepare for a potential outbreak.
“We have fully mobilized all our available resources within our state and local health departments to meet this issue head-on,” Brewer said.
She said the state has a specific plan for dealing with flu outbreaks, known as the State Flu Pandemic Plan. She did not go into detail about the plan but said it includes distributing a stockpile of more than 250,000 vaccine doses, which are being given out to hospital emergency rooms, clinics and urgent-care centers.
The state’s interim director of health services, Will Humble, said his department has the means to deal with the spread of swine flu, but the public will play a more important role than any official in preventing an outbreak.
“Part of our prevention effort really depends on folks at home paying attention to those tried and true public interventions that happen every single day,” Humble said.
These interventions include washing your hands, covering your mouth when sneezing and staying home when you are sick, he said.
Officials also expressed concern that public panic could cause the state’s hospitals and clinics to become clogged with people who falsely believe they have swine flu. People who are experiencing flu-like symptoms should not visit a doctor unless those symptoms are serious, they said.
Severe symptoms include having trouble breathing, severe nausea and a recovery time longer than two to three days.
None of the state officials knows how the child in Phoenix got the flu or where he was exposed, but Brewer said it is a moot point.
“The pig has left the pen,” Brewer said, “and we are trying to mitigate any further illnesses by giving people information and following our plan.”
There have been about 100 confirmed swine-flu cases in the United States so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials at the CDC say the strain of the disease that has spread to the U.S., which has killed only one person, seems to be milder than the one in Mexico, which has killed about 160 people.
Reach the reporter at derek.quizon@asu.edu.
