BY LENITA POWERS • April 29, 2009
Health authorities will not close the Reno preschool that cared for a 2-year-old girl who was confirmed Wednesday to have contacted Nevada’s first case of swine flu.
Fundamentals Preschool, located on North Virginia St. across from Lawlor Events Center, has had an excellent health record and the facility has been thoroughly disinfected, said Mike Willden, director of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Health officials said they will be able to better monitor all the children who already have been exposed to the illness if they remain at the preschool rather than close it and have them scattered among other facilities.
Two other children at the preschool who appeared to be ill have tested negative for swine flu.
Lisa Munson, who has owned the preschool with her husband John for more than 15 years, said the facility cares for about 20 children, who range in age from 2 to 6.
Munson said she informed the families of the other preschool children that the 2-year-old girl, who had been enrolled at the school for about a year, had contracted a confirmed case of swine flu.
“They were all very supportive,” Munson said.
Health officials did not release the girl’s name because of a federal health privacy law.
The girl was not hospitalized and is now home, Kristina Westerlund, the child’s cousin, said during a media briefing held at the Washoe County Health District in Reno.
Westerlund said her cousin appeared ill and listless Friday and was taken to the hospital Sunday with a fever of 104 degrees.
She said the child has fully recovered but the family was told she cannot return to the preschool until Monday.
Westerlund said her cousin’s 4-month-old sister is home after being diagnosed with pneumonia, but she doesn’t believe it is related to the swine flu.
During a press briefing held earlier in the day, Randall Todd, the Washoe County Health District’s epidemiologist, said the 2-year-old Reno girl’s case was one of four suspicious flu cases being tested by the state laboratory Monday.
The other three cases, one in Las Vegas and two in Carson City, were not swine flu.
It took several days to determine that the Reno case was swine flu because the sample from the child had to be sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said Todd at the briefing attended by Gov. Jim Gibbons and state health officials.
After the child was diagnosed locally as having Influenza A, a common strain of flu, a sample was sent to the state laboratory, he said
“Our state laboratory has the ability to do subtyping on this,” Todd said of the A flu strain. “If they can’t subtype it, then there is the possibility that it might be swine influenza. And (the CDC) reported to us just (Wednesday) morning that it was positive for swine influenza.”
One of the girl’s family members has become ill and tests are being conducted to determine if swine flu is the cause, said Todd.
Neither the girl or her family is believed to have traveled to Mexico or to any other community in the United States where swine flu has been confirmed, he said.
The flu outbreak in Mexico is suspected of killing more than 150 people and sickening another 2,498 across the country. Twenty-six of the cases have been confirmed human as swine flu, including seven deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
Nevada is the 10th state to report a confirmed case of swine flu in the United States, bringing the nation’s total to 91 cases across the country, from New York to California.
So far only one death has been reported. A 23-month-old boy from Mexico City died in a Houston, Tex., hospital Monday. His family arrived three weeks ago to visit relatives in the border city of Brownsville, Tex. Dr. Mary Guinan, state health officer, said there are indications that cases of swine flu have occurred in the United States but gone undetected.
On Tuesday, the CDC reported that 85 percent of the cases that have been confirmed in the U.S. so far were contracted by people who had no connection to Mexico and had not traveled there.
“What that means is it has been circulating in the United States at a low level, and it is because of the attention that has been drawn to this particular illness that is the result of the number of cases in Mexico that we are actually testing for it,” Guinan said.
“So it is very likely that cases have occurred in the U.S., have come and gone and have not resulted in a fatality or severe illness and went unrecognized,” she said.
Although it is called swine flu, it is a new hybrid strain with components of pig, bird and human flu, according to the CDC.
“We’ll do everything we can to limit further transmission,” Todd said. “But I would caution there will likely be additional cases.
Gov. Gibbons said the state has tested flu pandemic scenarios in past years and will have almost 200,000 doses of antiviral medicine to help deal with the current situation.
The state has 140,000 doses of Tamiflu and Relenza, two prescription antiviral medicines that can lessen the severity of the flu’s symptoms, and the CDC is sending an additional 86,000 doses to Nevada.
“I think it’s important for the public to realize that it is working, we are prepared and the individual that did have this influenza is positively reacting to the medicine,” Gibbons said.
Willden said the department will make those antiviral medicines available to health districts, hospitals, pharmacies and doctors’ offices if they need them.
Dr. Mary Anderson, Washoe County health officer, said the best defense against swine flu or any other flu is basic good hygiene.
“Each one of you in the public can do your job by practicing good hygiene by covering coughs, by washing hands and by doing all those essential things your mom told you to do, but that you thought weren’t important,” Anderson said.
“Well, they are important, and I recommend highly that you to continue the use of good hygiene practices as a way to prevent the spread of this particular illness,” she said.