Re: Confirmed/Suspected Cases in New York State outside NYC
News updates for 6/23/09:
Reported by WHEC News Channel 10 in Rochester, NY:
Swine flu confirmed in Yates County
The Yates County Health Department reported that it received notification from the Wadsworth State Laboratory in Albany Monday morning of its first confirmed case of the H1N1 flu virus, also known as swine flu.
The person who is sick is recovering "without incident," according to a press release from Yates County.
The department recommends that anyone with flu symptoms stay home from work, school or public events until they are symptom free for 24 hours.
http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S990075.shtml?cat=565
Reported by the Daily Gazette in Schenectady, NY:
Swine flu fears close MDA camp
2 cases reported in Saratoga Springs School District
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
By Lee Coleman (Contact), Tatiana Zarnowski (Contact)
Gazette Reporter
CAPITAL REGION ? ?Jerry?s kids? won?t be going to camp this summer.
The swine flu pandemic has prompted the Muscular Dystrophy Association to cancel the rest of its summer camps nationwide, including the one scheduled to start Thursday at the Double H Ranch in Lake Luzerne.
In related news, two students at the Maple Avenue Middle School in Greenfield have tested positive for the swine flu virus, Saratoga Springs City School District district officials said Monday.
?The cases were confirmed over the weekend,? said Superintendent Janice White.
She said both middle school students remained out of school Monday and aren?t expected to return to school this year because only 11⁄2 days of school remain before summer break.
CAMP CLOSINGS DIFFICULT
The camp for about 20 area children with muscular dystrophy was supposed to run through June 30.
The camps are billed on MDA?s Web site as ?the best week of the year? for children afflicted with muscular dystrophy, a collection of neuromuscular diseases that range from mild to debilitating and fatal.
?They have compromised immune systems, so it will definitely be a challenge for them to get better,? said Roxan Olivas, spokeswoman for the MDA.
Eleven children in other states became ill with the H1N1 virus after MDA camps, and six more are suspected to have the virus but not yet confirmed, prompting the unprecedented decision to cancel the rest of the season nationwide.
Three of the youths were hospitalized, and one remains in the hospital in stable condition, Olivas said.
?This was one of the hardest decisions this organization has ever had to make,? Olivas said. It is the first time since the camps began in 1955 that they have been canceled.
Since the summer camps started in the past month, 1,800 children have attended 33 camps.
Another 2,500 children nationwide were expected to take part in the remaining 47 camps. One volunteer counselor for each child also attends each camp.
Olivas said six children fell ill during a camp in Worcester, Pa., that ended on Saturday. Another 11 children were confirmed to have swine flu after leaving camp ? one in Utah and 10 in Minnesota.
The infections happened despite MDA?s policy of screening children and volunteers for exposure to and symptoms of swine flu before they were allowed to come to the camp. A person may be infected and contagious before symptoms appear.
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta agreed with the MDA?s decision to close the camps after a Friday meeting between the two organizations.
MDA staff nationwide called parents of children who were registered at the camps to deliver the bad news.
The organization?s Albany office serves children and adults with muscular dystrophy in eight counties, including Schenectady, Albany, Fulton, Montgomery and Schoharie.
Nationwide, the association supports 90 summer camps.
Camps are designed with special activities that children who use wheelchairs or have limited mobility can do.
Youths swim, boat, play baseball, football and ride horses, in addition to doing crafts and talent shows.
SCHOOL TO STAY OPEN
The Saratoga Springs School District posted a letter on its Web site on Monday and sent letters home to the parents of Maple Avenue Middle School students saying the school will stay open.
?Despite confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu in school districts, as advised by the state and local health departments, students can safely attend classes and our schools remain open at this time,? White said in a letter to parents. ?Students can continue to come to school as long as they are not sick and do not think they have flu symptoms,? she said.
About 1,500 students in grades 6 through 8 attend the school on Route 9 just north of Saratoga city limits.
The flu symptoms include a fever higher than 100 degrees, cough, sore throat, runny nose or stuffy nose, according to the district statement. In addition, with swine flu, people may also experience muscle pain, fatigue, vomiting and diarrhea.
The state Health Department says there have been six confirmed cases of swine flu in Saratoga County, six cases in Schenectady County, eight cases in Albany County, three in Montgomery County and four cases in Schoharie County.
Claire Pospisil, a state Health Department spokeswoman, said the number of confirmed swine flu cases was updated Monday.
The largest number of cases are in New York City with 1,032; 86 in Nassau County; and 100 in Suffolk County. Erie County, with 159 cases, and Onondaga County, with 84 cases, are among the top 10 swine flu counties in the state, according to the latest Health Department swine flu map.
?At this point the case numbers don?t have a lot of meaning,? Pospisil said. She said the swine flu virus is widespread in the nation and in the world.
New York State, as of June 19, leads the nation in swine flu deaths with 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state of Texas is the only other state with double digit swine flu deaths with 10.
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/jun/23/0623_swinecamp/
Reported by the Daily News in Batavia, NY:
Byron-Bergen student recovering from H1N1 flu
Monday, June 22, 2009 11:48 AM EDT
BERGEN -- A Byron-Bergen Central School student diagnosed with swine flu may already be back in school, Superintendent Gregory Geer said this morning.
The diagnosis of the H1N1 strain was confirmed Friday, Geer said, but the boy had already been out of school "for a while" and may be back by now.
District parents were notified of the diagnosis, he said.
CDC recommendations, according to Geer, are that people with swine flu be isolated for seven days or be symptom-free for 24 hours.
Geer said the student is in one of the school's lower grades, but he was not sure where the boy lived.
Genesee County has had one other confirmed swine flu case involving an adult male in Batavia.
http://www.thedailynewsonline.com/articles/2009/06/22/news/5651009.txt
Reported 6/17 by WHEC News Channel 10 in Rochester, NY:
Health alert to Monroe County residents
Posted at: 06/17/2009 10:22 AM | WHEC.com
Updated at: 06/17/2009 4:02 PM
By: Ray Levato
Monroe County has issued a health alert for the greater Rochester area for the Swine Flu.
The county health director this morning announced that the local influenza outbreak has reached epidemic proportions and it's putting a strain on doctors' offices, emergency rooms and urgent care centers.
County Health Director Dr. Andrew Doniger says he is raising the alert level and people should expect to see changes in the way they get health care.
In short, if you don't have a serious case of the flu, you may not get into see your doctor right away. That's because they're now prioritizing doctor visits to treat only the most vulnerable flu patients.
Dr. Doniger says even though the disease is mild, there's a lot of it out there. And he says there's a segment of the population that is more vulnerable to serious consequences from influenza.
People who have serious underlying chronic health problems could end up in the hospital and have severe complications from the flu.
Doniger said, ?This does not mean that patients shouldn't go to the doctor. What it does mean is that they should contact their physician's office. If they have mild symptoms and they don't have underlying health conditions, they may not be invited in for a visit. They may be told to stay home and keep in touch by phone.?
Dr. Doniger says strains of influenza typically come in waves and usually last four to six weeks. He says the current wave should probably last a few more weeks but says it's possible that we may experience a second wave in the fall. Doniger says this strain of the flu has been present in our area for about two months.
Until recently, it has affected relatively few people but during the second week of June, school absenteeism rates rose to twice the level expected.
Pediatrician Dr. Anne Francis, Pediatrician said, ?We've seen a number of high school students and they're coming in. They've haven't been too sick. Some of them have had fevers of 102, 103, but haven't been as sick as some of the flu we've seen in previous years.?
Federal health officials say if a vaccine is needed, young children may be the first to get it.
For more Rochester, N.Y. news go to our website
www.whec.com.
http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S982751.shtml?cat=566
Reported by the Buffalo News in Buffalo, NY:
06/23/09 06:54 AM
Delving into swine flu death of ?very healthy? teen
Complications from MRSA bacteria contribute to first local H1N1 fatality
By Henry L. Davis
NEWS MEDICAL REPORTER
Matthew Davis was a healthy Buffalo teenager who participated in sports before complaining of headaches June 13.
Within a few days, the 15-year-old student at Harvey Austin School 97 on Sycamore Street arrived seriously ill at Women & Children?s Hospital and then died Saturday, making him the first known fatality in Erie County caused by swine flu, officially known as novel H1N1 influenza.
It was a surprising turn of events for the family.
?He was a very healthy boy,? said his mother, Lucretia Belton.
What happened? By the time Matthew entered the hospital, he was seriously ill with the flu, as well as co-infected with a type of bacteria known as methicillin-resistant staphylococ-
cus aureus, or MRSA, according to health officials.
MRSA has been a problem in hospitals and nursing homes for decades, but has also spread to otherwise healthy people in the community, living normally on the skin and in the nose and throat. Research suggests that the overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the problem.
This bacteria can cause infections of the skin, nose, throat and ear. But in a small number of cases, especially in patients with weakened immune systems, it can lead to life-threatening pneumonia and blood infections.
An estimated 92 children die annually in the United States from regular influenza, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some of those deaths have been associated with coinfection with MRSA. As such, officials at the federal agency said last month they are closely following the development of the new H1N1 flu strain to see whether there is a similar co-infection with community-acquired MRSA in some cases.
In total, eight people, including two adults, have been hospitalized in Erie County since the first case of H1N1 was confirmed in the county May 11. Three children remain hospitalized in Women & Children?s with the new strain of the flu, including a 9-year-old student at Charles Drew Science Magnet School 59 in critical condition. Matthew and the 9-year-old also were infected with MRSA when they were admitted to the hospital.
?Both children were unusually ill with severe lung disease, and both required ECMO, and that was unusual,? said Dr. Howard S. Faden, chairman of infection control and director of virology at Women & Children?s.
ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, is similar to a heart-lung bypass machine utilized in open-heart surgery and is used when patients fail to respond to a respirator or other typical treatments for breathing problems. Under ECMO, the patient?s blood receives oxygen from an artificial lung.
Most of the H1N1 cases seen in the Buffalo Niagara region have been mild, as is the case nationwide.
Nationally, the virus continues to sicken mostly younger people, usually causing such typical flu symptoms as fever, cough and fatigue. ?In terms of symptoms, swine flu appears to be like every other influenza. What?s different is that the seasonal flu usually stops by now, and this strain is continuing,? Faden said.
Belton said that Monday, she took her son to the hospital, where he received an antibiotic, and that Wednesday, they returned when his condition continued to decline.
?He just got worse and was feeling very fatigued,? she said.
So far, public health officials have reported about 1,600 hospitalizations and 87 deaths nationwide from H1N1. The regular flu causes 36,000 deaths a year in the United States.
About 70 percent of the hospitalized H1N1 patients nationwide have suffered from an existing underlying medical condition, such as asthma or diabetes, making them more at risk for complications, according to the federal agency.
That doesn?t appear to be the case with Matthew. However, his family has agreed to an autopsy to rule out any other explanations, Belton said.
On the influence of MRSA, Faden said it might be that the flu, whether it is swine flu or regular flu, damages the lower airway or impairs the body?s disease-fighting immune system. As a result, MRSA living in the nose or upper airway gains entrance into the bloodstream to cause disease.
?With the seasonal flu, there are two groups historically susceptible to more serious illness ? the very young and the very old,? he said. ?We don?t understand really what is happening with swine flu yet.?
This is somewhat understandable because novel H1N1 is an influenza virus of swine origin that was first detected in humans in April. The strain is continuing to spread in many parts of the nation, especially the Northeast, and researchers have yet to completely decipher how it develops and what makes one person more at risk than another. Nor is it yet known what percentage of the population is likely to get sick from H1N1 and what percentage is likely to die from it.
?We don?t know enough about the virus. People want answers right away, but we need more time to learn more about it,? Faden said.
All of which is why experts remain cautious about H1N1. No one yet knows whether it is more dangerous than regular flu or whether it will mutate later into a more lethal virus in a world population with little or no immunity to it.
As of Friday, there were 21,449 confirmed and probable cases of H1N1 flu in the nation. Erie County has reported 169. Several cases, all mild, have been reported in Niagara County, including three each reported for children in Barker and Niagara Falls last week.
However, those cases only reflect the illness? spread. The actual number of people with the virus is significantly higher, probably in the hundreds of thousands, officials at the federal agency said in a telephone briefing last week.
Buffalo Public School officials said Monday they are aware of 32 confirmed cases of H1N1 in the district ? 29 students and three adults ? in 11 of 63 schools.
Students and staff should stay home if they are sick, and any student in school with flu-like symptoms will be sent home, said Assunta R. Ventresca, director of health services.
Amherst Central Schools announced Monday that three more students at Windermere Boulevard Elementary had contracted the flu. The school, which has only a half-day remaining in the academic year, reported that the children are home with mild illness.
News Staff Reporter Jake May contributed to this report.
hdavis@buffnews.com
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/711734.html
Reported by the Post Star in Glens Falls, NY:
Spa City school reports cases of swine flu
By DREW KERR
dkerr@poststar.com
Updated: Monday, June 22, 2009 9:32 PM EDT
SARATOGA SPRINGS*- School officials in Saratoga Springs alerted parents on Monday that two students at Maple Avenue Middle School had contracted swine flu.
Janice White, superintendent for the Saratoga Springs City School District, said officials were notified of the cases over the weekend and that letters were being sent home with students on Monday so parents could be alerted.
The district also posted the letter on its Web site, which stated "students can safely attend classes, and our schools will remain open at this time."
Still, officials are urging parents to keep their students at home if they show flu-like symptoms. They are also stressing preventative measures such as hand washing, White said.
"Parents are the best judge of their child?s medical condition, so we?ll leave it up to them," she said, adding the district?s absence rate was reported at between 2 and 5 percent on Monday, which is about average.
White said she could not say whether the two students with confirmed cases were related or disclose which grades they are in.
The confirmation comes just two days before the school year comes to a close. White said officials will use the summer months to evaluate their response and ready themselves for students? return in the fall.
"We?ll use the information we have to make sure the students are as safe as possible," White said.
The New York State Department of Health had recorded 1,795 cases of confirmed swine flu statewide as of Monday ? up 39 from Friday?s tabulation.
Officials in Warren County reported their first confirmed case last week; Washington County has seen one confirmed case, and Saratoga County has seen six confirmed cases, a number that does not include one of the two cases reported by the school district on Monday.
Department of Health spokeswoman Claire Pospisil said the Health Department was awaiting confirmation on the second new case and that it would likely be added to the total this week.
This is the third local swine flu case involving a student.
In May, both the Cambridge School District in Washington County and the King?s School, a private Christian school in Hadley, alerted parents that students had confirmed cases of swine flu.
http://www.poststar.com/articles/2009/06/22/news/local/doc4a40304e2b8d6779853256.txt