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A Hilsman Middle School student was diagnosed with H1N1 swine flu over the weekend - the first reported case of swine flu among Athens public school students, a Clarke County School District spokeswoman said.
The student's parents notified a teacher at the Eastside school Sunday, school district spokeswoman Anisa Sullivan Jimenez said Wednesday.
"The parents knew to follow protocol and not bring the child to school on Monday," Jimenez said.
The student is under a doctor's care and is feeling better after taking antibiotics, according to a letter Principal Tony Price sent home with parents Monday.
"Please be advised that the student will not return to school until released from the doctor," Price said in the letter. "I will direct our teachers and staff to be even more diligent in terms of keeping their classrooms/school clean and re-emphasize the importance of washing our hands at all times."
The school district adheres to Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention guidelines for H1N1 flu, which say students should remain at home until at least 24 hours after all symptoms have passed and a doctor agrees it's OK to return to class, Jimenez said.
The swine flu isn't as serious as health officials feared last spring, when 500 schools closed for days to stave off a potential epidemic.
The CDC now urges school districts not to close schools and treat H1N1 more like the seasonal flu, asking students to cover their mouths and wash their hands and stay home if they get sick.
Most H1N1 cases are relatively mild and health officials don't plan to track new infections unless a patient ends up in the hospital, according to Steven Dumpert, a risk communicator for the Northeast Health District, a network of 18 clinics in 10 counties in and around Athens.
"At this point, the only reason we have (to test for swine flu) is because the public is concerned about what is the symptom of their fever, and they want to know if it's H1N1," Dumpert said. "When the public requests a lot of tests like that, we're going to find a lot of H1N1, because we're looking for it.
"The presence of these cases is not what we're worried about; it's whether or not these cases present a hospitalized condition - that's what we're worried about," he said.
The CDC expects more cases of swine flu to crop up this fall as another flu season approaches. In July, the CDC estimated that 40 percent of the population could catch swine flu within the next two years.
So far, the swine flu strain has claimed 436 lives and required 6,506 hospitalizations, according to the CDC. A vaccine for H1N1 is in production and should be ready by September or October.
To date, there hasn't been a confirmed hospitalization or death from swine flu in the 10-county Northeast Health District, Dumpert said.
Each year, an average of 36,000 people die from flu-related complications and more than 200,000 people are hospitalized. A majority of the people who die or are hospitalized for the flu are older than 65.
The student's parents notified a teacher at the Eastside school Sunday, school district spokeswoman Anisa Sullivan Jimenez said Wednesday.
"The parents knew to follow protocol and not bring the child to school on Monday," Jimenez said.
The student is under a doctor's care and is feeling better after taking antibiotics, according to a letter Principal Tony Price sent home with parents Monday.
"Please be advised that the student will not return to school until released from the doctor," Price said in the letter. "I will direct our teachers and staff to be even more diligent in terms of keeping their classrooms/school clean and re-emphasize the importance of washing our hands at all times."
The school district adheres to Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention guidelines for H1N1 flu, which say students should remain at home until at least 24 hours after all symptoms have passed and a doctor agrees it's OK to return to class, Jimenez said.
The swine flu isn't as serious as health officials feared last spring, when 500 schools closed for days to stave off a potential epidemic.
The CDC now urges school districts not to close schools and treat H1N1 more like the seasonal flu, asking students to cover their mouths and wash their hands and stay home if they get sick.
Most H1N1 cases are relatively mild and health officials don't plan to track new infections unless a patient ends up in the hospital, according to Steven Dumpert, a risk communicator for the Northeast Health District, a network of 18 clinics in 10 counties in and around Athens.
"At this point, the only reason we have (to test for swine flu) is because the public is concerned about what is the symptom of their fever, and they want to know if it's H1N1," Dumpert said. "When the public requests a lot of tests like that, we're going to find a lot of H1N1, because we're looking for it.
"The presence of these cases is not what we're worried about; it's whether or not these cases present a hospitalized condition - that's what we're worried about," he said.
The CDC expects more cases of swine flu to crop up this fall as another flu season approaches. In July, the CDC estimated that 40 percent of the population could catch swine flu within the next two years.
So far, the swine flu strain has claimed 436 lives and required 6,506 hospitalizations, according to the CDC. A vaccine for H1N1 is in production and should be ready by September or October.
To date, there hasn't been a confirmed hospitalization or death from swine flu in the 10-county Northeast Health District, Dumpert said.
Each year, an average of 36,000 people die from flu-related complications and more than 200,000 people are hospitalized. A majority of the people who die or are hospitalized for the flu are older than 65.
