The number of confirmed swine flu cases in Fort Bend County has climbed to 11, and seemingly has swelled dramatically in Texas and the U.S.
But it appears the increased numbers of confirmed cases – 440 in Texas and 3,352 thoughout the nation – have recently been recorded because of a partial easing of laboratory test backlogs.
Moreover, while the number of confirmed cases have been rising rapidly, warmer weather in Texas appears to have helped slow the spread of the new flu virus considerably, a local health official said Thursday.
In Fort Bend, one resident “highly probable” of having swine flu still is awaiting test results from a lab at the Centers for Disease Control. If that test proves positive, as is likely, the county will have recorded 12 confirmed cases of the pandemic flu virus, said Kaye Reynolds, deputy director of the Fort Bend County Health & Human Services Department.
Of those 12 cases, 10 are school-age children, one is a child too young to attend school and the other is an older adult, Reynolds said. The youngest swine flu victim was hospitalized for one day for observation; none of the rest were, and all have recovered or are doing so.
But it took weeks to have some of their test results confirmed. Reynolds said the highly probable case about which county officials still await test results was turned in to a City of Houston laboratory on April 27 – 18 days ago.
That lab is the only one in an 11-county region ,including greater Houston, qualified as part of the CDC’s Laboratory Response Network to perform swine flu tests. As requests for those test poured in, a backlog of well above 1,000 cases developed.
This week, the CDC provided Houston and other network labs with a kit that now allows local technicians to complete a final test confirming (or not confirming) the presence of swine flu.
Reynolds indicated that has sped up the lab processing of its backlog. Still, about 100 tests of Fort Bend County residents possibly infected with swine flu remain to be tested, she said.
She said, however, that local health officials have been aware of many of those cases since the first couple of weeks after the pandemic flu outbreak began, apparently in Mexico.
Now, “it definitely seems to be slowing,” Reynolds said. “It’s that time of year when flue goes away,” due to hotter weather and the fact that people spend more time outdoors rather than gathered inside in close quarters.
County health officials are not monitoring individual known swine flu cases as closely as earlier, unless a victim is hospitalized. Reynolds said officials still are monitoring hospital emergency room admissions, and gathering information about possible new flu cases from school nurses.
But while there’s apparently less risk of catching the swine flu now, that could change again when the weather cools down later this year.
Study of past pandemics sometimes has shown a mild spring outbreak, “and then they come back with other viruses in the fall.”
Since only those who’ve already contracted the new swine flu virus have immunity to it, the rest of us still will need to be on guard in autumn.
