Hillsborough closes 3 schools as precaution against swine flu

With two students among five probable cases of swine flu identified in Hillsborough County on Sunday, three Tampa schools will close as a precaution this week.

The news came as state health officials announced Florida's third confirmed case of swine flu - a 14-year-old girl from Orange County who has returned to Mexico. The others are a 17-year-old girl from Broward County and an 11-year-old boy from Lee County.

Freedom High School in New Tampa and Wilson Middle School in Hyde Park will close because students there are among the five suspected cases in Hillsborough. Liberty Middle School, which is on the same campus as Freedom High, will be closed because the schools share cafeteria service.

The schools will be closed through Friday, and sports and extracurricular activities at the schools are canceled. Freedom High night school classes held at other locations also have been canceled.

Crews will clean the schools while they are closed, according to recommendations from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cleaning will focus on common areas and places students are likely to touch, such as desks, stair railings and doors.

There are no plans yet to clean the buses serving the schools, Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said at a news conference Sunday.

Teachers will be off, but principals will be working.

All other Hillsborough County schools will be open, though school officials are checking whether any are reporting a large number of absences or higher traffic at school clinics, Elia said at the news conference, which also drew County Administrator Pat Bean, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and Doug Holt, director of the Hillsborough County Health Department.

Officials did not close the schools because they are dangerous, Holt said. The closings are to stem the flu's spread.

The CDC has not confirmed the cases to be swine flu, but the agency recommends local health departments take action as if they were.

Any flu tests the Florida Department of Health can't identify as a known strain are sent to the CDC. Of those sent to the CDC nationwide, about 95 percent have tested positive for swine flu, Holt said.

Because of the volume of samples, it can take up to five days for results.

No common link among sick

The probable cases from Hillsborough include an 11-year-old boy, two 22-year-old men, a 21-year-old woman and an 18-year-old man. A sibling of one also has flulike symptoms but was not in school at the end of last week, Holt said.

All have been told to stay home.

There is no common link among the five, though two know someone who recently returned from Mexico, which has seen the greatest number of cases. The patients in their 20s do not attend a college or university or work in high-risk places such as nursing homes or day care centers.

To reduce the risk of spreading the flu, students from the three schools closed this week should not congregate in malls, theaters or day care centers, Holt said.

So far, just the three schools are affected, and the county as a whole should continue functioning as normal, Bean said Sunday. There is no need to cancel mass events, she said.

Students at Freedom High will miss Advanced Placement tests. The school district is making arrangements to reschedule those exams, as well as athletic events, Elia said.

That means the school can't compete in the Class 3A state track and field championships Friday in Winter Park. The Patriots qualified in the girls 4x100- and 4x800-meter relays and the girls pole vault event.

The football team, which started spring practice Friday, will also miss a week of work before its May 22 Jamboree Game against Wharton High School. But Coach James Harrell said players can get ready physically and mentally on their own and still have a week to practice together before the game.

"First and foremost is the safety of our kids," Harrell said. "If that's what it takes, it's bigger than the game."

Closings are 'just common sense'

Yougui Wu, the father of Liberty Middle School eighth-grader Hengyi Wu, said his son is old enough to stay home alone and that the school's closure won't present a problem. Wu, a professor in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of South Florida's College of Public Health, said he supports the school district's decision to close the school.

"I think it's just common sense. Nobody wants to take a risk," Wu said. "The bottom line is: It's dangerous. What happens if it's a severe case? Then what are you going to do? So why not stay home and not take the risk? I'm 100 percent in support of it."

Radhika Ranganathan, a pediatrician whose daughter, Sheela, attends Liberty, said she also supports closing the school. Sheela may have to come to the office with her mother, but the inconvenience is worth it, Ranganathan said.

"I'm not too sure how quickly it's going to spread, but just a week ago we heard it was in the U.S. Then yesterday Saturday, I hear it is in Freedom High," Ranganathan said. "So yes, definitely, I'm concerned."

Ranganathan said she plans on ordering more flu tests for her patients.

No immunity to new flu strain

Though the cases in this country have nearly all been mild, the fact that the flu strain is new means people have no immunity. That makes it potentially more dangerous than the seasonal varieties of flu.

Those don't spread like wildfire, though, Holt said. This variety might affect five or six times the number of people normally hit by seasonal flu. If that happens, the 100 or so flu-related fatalities Hillsborough County sees each year could jump to 500 or 600, he said.

In addition to the five probable cases from Hillsborough, the CDC is testing 10 other cases from Florida.

Sunday, the state Department of Health reported that single cases from Pinellas, Alachua, Indian River, Okeechobee, Lee and Clay counties are being tested. Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties each have two possible cases.

The CDC on Sunday was reporting a total of 226 confirmed cases in the United States in 30 states.

The World Health Organization is maintaining its alert level at Phase 5 on a scale of six. Phase 6 represents a full-scale pandemic.

WHO officials said at a news conference Sunday that there are 787 cases worldwide in 17 countries. They are waiting to see where the disease spreads before raising the alert level to Phase 6.