4 swine flu cases in Arizona

State officials ordered a second Phoenix-area school closed for a week on Thursday because a student was confirmed to have the swine flu.

The school wasn’t immediately identified because state officials said they wanted parents to have a chance to pick up their children and read a letter explaining the reasons for the closure first.

The announcement came hours after the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed three additional cases of swine flu in Arizona. That brought the total swine flu cases in the state to four. Since Sunday, the state has sent 44 samples to the CDC in Atlanta, and 40 are pending.

Maricopa County’s health director, Dr. Bob England, said none of the patients who tested positive for the flu have been hospitalized or suffered severe symptoms. All four confirmed cases were in children, and all have either recovered or are recovering.

“It isn’t going to stop there,” England said. “We have lots of testing to be done, and in the coming days we’re going to have more (confirmed cases).”

The first case was confirmed Wednesday in an 8-year-old northwest Phoenix boy. Although he had returned to school, health officials ordered his elementary school closed for a week to prevent the disease from spreading.

The student whose illness prompted the closure of the second school also had recovered. The third ill student hadn’t attended school while contagious, and the fourth case is still being investigated, England said.

England and state health services department interim director Will Humble said it appears the swine flu that has spread across the nation in the past week isn’t any more severe than a normal influenza. If evidence continues to mount that this is the case, school closures could end quickly.

“We don’t do that for regular run-of-the-mill flu as you know, and as soon as we’re sure that this is no worse than regular flu we’ll stop doing it,” England said.

The CDC and officials in several states have confirmed at least 120 cases of the swine flu as of Thursday. They are in New York, Texas, California, South Carolina, Delaware and scattered cases in Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Minnesota, Colorado, Georgia and Maine.

About 36,000 people die each year in the United States from the regular flu. The U.S. has reported only one death outside Mexico from the swine flu — a Mexican toddler who visited Texas with his family.

Health officials said people should treat the swine flu strain like any other flu — contact your personal doctor, and avoid spreading the virus by staying home and covering sneezes and coughs. Patients should seek additional medical help if fever persists or spikes, breathing is difficult or other severe symptoms develop.

Arizona health officials have tested nearly 400 samples since Monday in a state lab and determined a majority of them weren’t the swine flu.

“We’re chugging them in and out,” state health department spokeswoman Laura Oxley said. “We’re prepared to go around the clock, (but) we haven’t had to do that yet.”

Oxley said the state could receive test kits by the end of the week from the CDC that will enable health officials to confirm the virus themselves.

“We are working on it,” she said. “We want to do it, and life will be a lot easier when that comes.”