Published: May 06, 2009 01:47 pm      

Indiana reports 12 new swine flu cases

Virus turned out to be milder than initially feared

INDIANAPOLIS — State health officials said Tuesday that 12 more cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Indiana, boosting the state’s total number of cases from three to 15.

“It’s on course with what we would have expected,” state Health Commissioner Dr. Judy Monroe said at a news conference.

Marion County officials also announced that two elementary schools that had been ordered closed last Friday until May 11 because each had one confirmed swine flu case will reopen Thursday morning to the schools’ 1,100 students.

Indianapolis Public School 60 and Spring Mill Elementary School in Washington Township will reopen based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new policy for schools with suspected swine flu cases, said Dr. Virginia Caine, director of the Marion County Health Department.

Last week, the government advised schools to shut down for about two weeks if there were suspected cases of swine flu, but the Department of Health and Human Services dropped that policy Tuesday because the swine flu virus had turned out to be milder than initially feared.

Monroe said schools should follow the new CDC guidelines but that decisions on closures would be made at a local level.

Caine and school superintendents James Mervilde of Washington Township and Eugene White of IPS said Friday’s decision to close the schools was based on the best information available at the time.

“One of the commitments this country made based on some tragedies that we’ve experienced is that we want to be overprepared, we want to err on the side of precaution,” Mervilde said. “I think it was a good-faith attempt by people in this situation.”

All students will be required to submit a form saying they have been free of flu-like symptoms before being readmitted, the superintendents said. Caine said students who indicate they have had fever, vomiting or diarrhea will be kept out of school for seven days unless a doctor provides a different diagnosis.

Monroe said that though the virus is proving less severe than feared, swine flu should not taken lightly. She said an average of 36,000 people die from influenza during regular flu season each year.

“Flu is always serious,” she said. “It’s still a new virus. We don’t want people to be complacent about this.”

Monroe said the 12 new swine flu cases were confirmed by state labs, which had received testing kits from the CDC.

The new cases are spread across the state, with five new cases in Marion County, three in Lake County, and one each in Hendricks, Putnam, St. Joseph and Tippecanoe counties.

Indiana had previously reported three cases — the two at the Indianapolis elementary schools and one in St. Joseph County, where a University of Notre Dame student tested positive.

Monroe said the average age of those in the confirmed cases is 17. She said more research is needed to determine if there is any common link among the 15 cases.