Florida now has 55 confirmed cases of swine flu

May  11 , 2009        10:30 a.m.

Pigs & Swine Flu

All four Department of Health laboratories have received testing supplies from the Centers for Disease Control and now can test samples to confirm H1N1 Swine Flu. This testing capability allows the Department to expedite results as we no longer need to send probable cases to CDC laboratories.

Florida has 55 confirmed cases in the following counties: one in Osceola, Alachua, Indian River, Marion, Clay, Collier, Lake, Manatee, Seminole, Okeechobee, and Duval, two in Orange, Brevard and Sarasota, 3 in Pinellas, 7 in Lee, 8 in Hillsborough, and 10 in Dade and Broward each.

The increase in confirmed cases is primarily due to the cleaning of a CDC testing backlog of samples from probable cases previously submitted.

New confirmed cases are:

Osceola: 6 year-old male; Brevard: a 7 year-old female and a 7 year-old male; Sarasota:  a 2 year-old male and a 10 year-old female; Pinellas:19 year-old female and a13 year-old male; Hillsborough: a 27 year-old male and an 11 year-old female; Broward: a 12 year-old female, a 9 year-old male, a 17 year-old female,  a 3 year-old male, a 23 year-old male, and a  42 year-old male, Dade: a 23 year-old male; a 7 year-old male; a 16 year-old male, a 12 year-old female, a 16 year-old female, an 11 year-old female, and a 6 year-old (unknown sex); Lee: a 10 year-old male, a 7 year-old male, a 21 year-old female, an 18 year-old male, an 8 year-old female, a 7 year-old male, and a 60 year-old female; Manatee: a 2 year-old female; Marion: a 17 year-old female; Lake: a 29 year-old male .

We have 4 probables in the following counties:

Flagler, and Palm Beach has one probable, Okaloosa has 2.

CDC no longer recommends that communities with a laboratory confirmed case of influenza A H1N1 consider adopting school dismissal or childcare closure measures.

A public health emergency was declared by the State Surgeon General.

A toll free information line has been established for Swine Flu information. The number is 1-800- 775 8039.

Picture (Metafile)

Samples are being received by Florida Department of Health Laboratories for analysis from physicians and hospitals across the state.

The Department of Health continues enhanced surveillance and outreach to physicians, hospitals and other health care professionals. The surveillance system, consisting of sentinel physicians reporting influenza activity, DOH laboratories receiving specimens from physicians and hospitals and our ability to monitor emergency room cases and over- the-counter drug sales is fully operational. We have activated our response plan and are ready to respond to any cases of swine flu if it should occur.

Department of Health continues its enhanced surveillance with a network of Sentinel Physician Providers.  These providers send selected samples of laboratory specimens to state laboratories for testing if they have patients with influenza like illness (ILI).  These physicians also continue to report weekly ILI cases to the Department of Health.

Anti-virals have been pre-positioned to areas of potential need.  We have over one half million  individual courses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 2532 confirmed cases of novel influenza in  the  United States with three deaths.

The World Health Organization (WHO) alert level remains at Phase 5.  The declaration of a Phase 5 is a strong signal that the pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.

Participation in Centers for Disease Control and other national conference calls will continue.