Published: May 01, 2009 01:31 pm      

Indiana gets additional swine flu test results

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana halted visits to prison inmates and at least two schools canceled classes Thursday in the state’s latest steps to prevent the spread of the swine flu virus.

Indiana still had only one confirmed swine flu case as of Thursday — that of a University of Notre Dame student who has fully recovered but whose source of infection remains unknown. But Gov. Mitch Daniels said he expects more cases of the virus that’s suspected in about 170 deaths in Mexico.

“We’ll take necessary steps, but at the same time people should be reassured that for the moment we have a manageable situation. We’ll keep you posted,” Daniels told reporters at the Statehouse.

Health officials continued stressing hygiene, including frequent hand-washing, to prevent the spread of the virus, and the state began shipping to county health departments enough antiviral medication to treat 238,000 people.

The medication, once part of the federal government’s antiviral stockpile, was delivered to the state Wednesday. That means Indiana, which has its own stockpile of enough medication to treat about 651,000 people, now has enough medication on hand to treat about 14 percent of the state’s population in the event of a swine flu outbreak.

Melissa Dexter, a state health department spokeswoman, said Thursday the agency received results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on other viral samples taken from patients with suspected cases of swine flu, but none of those were positive for the virus.

Dexter said state health officials will not be disclosing how many samples of suspected swine flu virus are being analyzed, nor how many samples test negative for the virus.