Updated: Fort Bend County has seen its first confirmed case of swine flu, and Texas now has 16 confirmed cases including a young boy who died Monday in Houston.
A spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services said Wednesday afternoon that state officials have no other information about the local case other than it was confirmed from Fort Bend County. He said that case, five new cases in Guadalupe County, two new cases in Starr County and one in Cameron all were confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control. The confirmations came as the result of lab tests.
Fort Bend County health officials could not be reached Wednesday evening. A spokeswoman for Fort Bend Independent School District said officials there had not been notified about the local case of swine flu.
Lamar Consolidated and Fort Bend ISDs both have said they are closely monitoring the flu outbreak but, as of Wednesday morning, had observed no cases on any of their campuses.
“School nurses are continuously monitoring student and staff illnesses and are stressing the importance of good hygiene practices such as hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes,” LCISD said in a statement.
In Guadalupe County, which has half of Texas’ confirmed cases at eight, all schools in the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District were closed beginning on Monday as a precaution against spreading the disease.
Normally a respiratory disease that causes occasional outbreaks in pigs, swine flu has only rarely been reported to have been transmitted from pigs to people, and even more rarely from person to person.
The human swine flu outbreak began in Mexico. News organizations have reported that probably more than 2,000 people have become sick with swine flu in Mexico City, and more than 100 have died. However, the World Health Organization reported Tuesday that Mexico only has reported 26 confirmed cases and seven deaths.
In the United States, the CDC reports a total of 64 cases, including the six confirmed Texas cases, but not the death of the boy in Houston.
According to news reports, that boy had traveled with his family from Mexico to Brownsville, and was brought to Houston after becoming sick. He died in Houston Monday night.
The CDC is providing extensive information on its web site about the disease and steps people should take to protect against the spread of infection.
