The Emporia Gazette

February 14, 2012

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TOPEKA — Kansas officials say they have three more “presumptively confirmed” cases of H1N1 flu in the state.

If verified by federal labs, it would raise the number of Kansas cases to five, with one probable case in Johnson County still awaiting further testing.

Maggie Thompson of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said Sunday that the state lab used new test kits sent from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm the cases. The cases were in Sedgwick County and in Johnson County, separate from the probable case of a resident there who is hospitalized.

KDHE says additional cases are likely to be announced soon, but didn’t give a specific time.

CDC is requiring states send five confirmed tests to Atlanta for verification before they can lift the presumptive label on cases. However, state officials said they are treating the cases as if they were confirmed.

The health department provided no additional details about the age or gender of the new patients.

But the Sedgwick County Health Department on Friday said H1N1 flu was possible in a student at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School.

The school sent a letter to parents saying the student became ill out of state, has not been in the building since then and will remain out of school for at least another week. Principal Mary Sweet said school would be in session today.

Kansas already has two confirmed cases of H1N1 flu — a Dickinson County couple who became ill after the husband returned from a trip to Mexico. Neither was hospitalized.

Missouri also has two confirmed cases involving a 30-year-old Platte County woman and a 19-year-old Kansas City-area man whose illness was discovered while he was in a Nebraska hospital seeking treatment for an unrelated medical condition.

Officials at Fort Riley have taken precautions against a possible outbreak there, advising families to put together emergency kits with two weeks’ worth of supplies, including food.

The fort hasn’t reported any potential cases of the virus but advised that families needed to continue to take preventative measures as news about H1N1 flu declines.

U.S health officials said Sunday there were 226 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu in 30 states and only one death, a toddler from Mexico who died in Texas. Thirty people have been hospitalized, mostly older children and young adults.

On the Sunday talk shows, health officials were cautiously optimistic that the new H1N1 flu isn’t as dangerous as first feared. But they urged caution.

ON THE NET:

Kansas Department of Health and Environment: www.kdheks.gov