Montana's first case of H1N1 influenza, commonly called swine flu, is expected to be confirmed as soon as Sunday, but local and state health officials said Friday there is no need to panic.
Samples from a 20-year-old Billings man have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for testing. State officials said they believe, based on Department of Public Health and Human Services tests, that the case will be confirmed as swine flu.
"We anticipated that there would be a case, and now we think that we're close to having that happen," DPHHS Director Anna Whiting Sorrell said in a conference call.
The man came to a Billings walk-in clinic last weekend with mild flu symptoms, said Lil Anderson, Yellowstone County health officer and president and CEO of RiverStone Health. He was not hospitalized and is doing "fairly well," she said. He doesn't have a history of travel, and officials don't yet know where he may have contracted the virus.
