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The Florida Department of Health has sent samples from three flu cases to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for further analysis to see if they are swine flu. It means testing of the samples by state laboratories could not rule out that possibility.
The samples were from Broward, Orange and Lee counties, with none from Miami-Dade, according to Susan Smith, spokeswoman for the state health department.
State labs have received at least 70 possible swine flu samples from several Florida counties, including 20 from Miami-Dade and ''several'' from Broward. It wasn't clear whether the fact that only three cases were sent on to the CDC means the rest have been ruled out as swine flu.
Miami-Dade health officials said Thursday they haven't been told whether the 20 Dade cases have been analyzed yet, or when they might get results.
Broward County Health Department spokeswoman Candy Sims said samples from ''several'' possible flu cases had been sent to the Florida Department of Health labs for analysis.
She didn't know when she might get results from the case forwarded to the CDC. And she said she had no further information about the possible Broward case.
At a late-morning briefing Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said swine flu cases in the United States have reached 109, with 10 new cases in South Carolina, bringing the number of affected states to 11. No swine flu cases have been reported in Florida.
Besser, at the CDC, said he is somewhat encouraged that U.S. swine flu cases so far have not been as virulent as cases in Mexico, where at least 159 have died and thousands have been infected.
Only one swine flu death has been reported in the United States, in Texas. It was a 23-month old Mexican boy who contracted it in Mexico.
''I'd love to continue to see the same types of cases we have primarily seen so far -- the less severe cases,'' Besser said. But he added: ``I expect to see ongoing transmission in the states, with a broader spectrum of severity.
''We're trying to understand the different picture in Mexico,'' he said. ``We're looking at whether it's a different virus, how long people waited to get help, what treatment they were given. We don't know the answers.''
Public concern is high, Besser said.
''We're getting 4,000 phone calls, 2,000 e-mails and eight million hits on our website per day,'' he said. ``We're tweeting. I've never tweeted before.''
Besser called it ''a good thing'' that the World Health Organization on Wednesday raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 5. That phase is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short,'' the CDC said.
Samples of the swine flu strain are being analyzed by CDC experts seeking to isolate the ''seed'' factors needed to create a vaccine against swine flu. Besser said he hopes a vaccine can be ready in time for the fall flu season. He said manufacturers will finish making vaccines against regular seasonal flu for the fall before starting to make vaccines against swine flu.
The samples were from Broward, Orange and Lee counties, with none from Miami-Dade, according to Susan Smith, spokeswoman for the state health department.
State labs have received at least 70 possible swine flu samples from several Florida counties, including 20 from Miami-Dade and ''several'' from Broward. It wasn't clear whether the fact that only three cases were sent on to the CDC means the rest have been ruled out as swine flu.
Miami-Dade health officials said Thursday they haven't been told whether the 20 Dade cases have been analyzed yet, or when they might get results.
Broward County Health Department spokeswoman Candy Sims said samples from ''several'' possible flu cases had been sent to the Florida Department of Health labs for analysis.
She didn't know when she might get results from the case forwarded to the CDC. And she said she had no further information about the possible Broward case.
At a late-morning briefing Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said swine flu cases in the United States have reached 109, with 10 new cases in South Carolina, bringing the number of affected states to 11. No swine flu cases have been reported in Florida.
Besser, at the CDC, said he is somewhat encouraged that U.S. swine flu cases so far have not been as virulent as cases in Mexico, where at least 159 have died and thousands have been infected.
Only one swine flu death has been reported in the United States, in Texas. It was a 23-month old Mexican boy who contracted it in Mexico.
''I'd love to continue to see the same types of cases we have primarily seen so far -- the less severe cases,'' Besser said. But he added: ``I expect to see ongoing transmission in the states, with a broader spectrum of severity.
''We're trying to understand the different picture in Mexico,'' he said. ``We're looking at whether it's a different virus, how long people waited to get help, what treatment they were given. We don't know the answers.''
Public concern is high, Besser said.
''We're getting 4,000 phone calls, 2,000 e-mails and eight million hits on our website per day,'' he said. ``We're tweeting. I've never tweeted before.''
Besser called it ''a good thing'' that the World Health Organization on Wednesday raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 5. That phase is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short,'' the CDC said.
Samples of the swine flu strain are being analyzed by CDC experts seeking to isolate the ''seed'' factors needed to create a vaccine against swine flu. Besser said he hopes a vaccine can be ready in time for the fall flu season. He said manufacturers will finish making vaccines against regular seasonal flu for the fall before starting to make vaccines against swine flu.
