'Probable' swine flu case ID'd as county's first

<p>A 15-year-old girl who returned from Mexico earlier this week is Sonoma County’s first apparent case of swine flu, or A/H1N1 virus influenza, public health officials said Friday.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>The girl, whose identity is not being revealed, passed through the Mexico City airport and contracted the virus during her travel back to the United States.</p><p>“She became ill, we believe, on Sunday,” said Dr. Mark Netherda, Sonoma County’s deputy public health officer. “She is recovering and doing well.”</p><p>Even as the first “probable” case of A(H1N1) reaches Sonoma County, health officials reminded the public that the new virus appears to be no more transmissible or serious than regular seasonal flu.</p><p>Netherda, speaking at a noon press conference at the county health department’s prevention and planning division in Santa Rosa, said the girl was tested at on Wednesday and that the results came back positive late Thursday night.</p><p>The degree of her illness was “moderate,” he said, adding that the girl, a public school student, did not return to classes after getting back from Mexico and that no school dismissals will be made at this time. Officials did not name the school or disclose her hometown.</p><p>The test results are not a confirmation of A(H1N1) — such certainty can only be obtained through genetic sequencing done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.</p><p>However, Netherda said that about 95 percent of all probable cases have ended up being confirmed by the CDC.</p><p>The county has dispatched public health nurses to interview the girl’s family members, none of whom have exhibited flu-like symptoms. Health officials have asked family members to isolate themselves in a “self-imposed quarantine” to reduce the possibility of spreading the illness. The family “is cooperating,” Netherda said.</p><p>Netherda said that while it was only a matter of time before Sonoma County logged its first probable case of the virus, there is no “evidence of ongoing or sustained transmission” of the virus in the Sonoma County.</p><p>He said county health officials expect to see more cases, though efforts are being made that neither the girl nor her family be the cause of future cases.</p><p>“We’re hoping, and we believe, that we can contain it at this point,” he said.</p><p>U.S. health officials have confirmed 146 cases of the swine flu in 19 states, including 18 in California. There has been one flu-related death in Texas.</p><p>Netherda emphasized that the new virus does not appear to be as dangerous as originally feared.</p><p>“This flu does not appear to be anymore severe than seasonal flu. So why all the hubbub? Why all the hype?” he said. </p><p>“It’s new,” he said, adding that there’s much that unknown about the strain.</p><p>Mexico’s death toll remains 168 total for confirmed and suspected cases of the virus, but the country no longer is releasing numbers of those suspected to have died or to be ill.</p>