McDuffie County has at least seven confirmed cases of the novel influenza A H1N1 virus infection but there are likely more, a physician said. Still, the cases appear to be mild in children, all of them have recovered and parents are urged not to panic over the appearance of the new virus.
Family physician Daryl Wiley of Family Care Group of Thomson said he saw three children from the same family about two weeks ago and got positive tests from a rapid swab test that confirmed influenza A.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Georgia Division of Public Health no longer test routine cases and only do confirmation tests on hospitalized or severely ill suspected cases of H1N1. So Dr. Wiley, a member of McDuffie County Board of Health, sent off the swabs for confirmation testing to a lab in California on his own.
"I really did it more for my curiosity, to see were these really going to come back positive," he said Wednesday night. Quest Diagnostics Inc. was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in late July to begin offering the first commercially available H1N1 test.
"We've probably had maybe 20 positive swabs," Dr. Wiley said. "We have sent off 8 and of the eight we sent off seven of them came back positive." A physician assistant in his practice saw seven or eight positive rapid tests Wednesday, he said.
The rapid tests used in most physician offices can only identify it as influenza A. However, as of Aug. 8, 98 percent of the influenza A viruses subtyped by the CDC were the new virus, the agency said, making it likely that any influenza A identified would turn out to be H1N1.
Georgia and CDC have stopped reporting individual cases numbers and are now only reporting the number of hospitalizations and deaths from H1N1. Across the country, there have been 7,511 hospitalizations and 477 deaths as of Aug. 8, including 74 hospitalizations and three deaths in Georgia.
South Carolina is still reporting 491 cases, including 18 in Aiken and one in Edgefield.
All of the patients Dr. Wiley has followed up on have recovered and many of them did not appear to be that bad off when they were infected, he said.
"The ones that I've seen don't look quite as sick as the adults with flu," Dr. Wiley said. "They kind of look like just a really bad cold."
He is advising parents to follow the CDC guidelines and don't send children to school until they have been without a fever for 24 hours.
Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.
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There have actually been 13 confirmed cases of the swine flu in McDuffie County schools, with 6 of them being at the Middle School.
this is no big deal. Read the history of the vaccinations before you ever consider vaccination. The treatment in the past was much worst than the disease. Best thing to do for your children is stop feeding them junk and get them plenty of sunshine without sun screen. Don't be so germ focused, which still is just a disease theroy, and not a fact. We all get exposed to just about everything and our immune system; if not weak because of sugar, dairy and low vid D can fight off just about anything. As the weather cools we are inside more and the holiday season brings on more sugar so it becomes what we call flu season but it is really sugar season. Become independently healthy
So, was it Swine flu or the regular flu? I'm confused......
Apparently Dr. Wiley isn't aware of the "one-size-fits-all" mentality of local school boards, and that a child must attend X number of days to pass or graduate. So keeping your kids out with a mild fever, could very well cost you in the billfold and mess up the kids summer next year. I say send them to school and let the nurse send them home. At least that way you have a defense if the kid misses too much time.