Flu spread threat growing

• By SANDY DAVIS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: May 3, 2009

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There now are 23 suspected cases of swine flu in six Louisiana parishes, including a potential cluster of cases in four Lafayette schools, Gov. Bobby Jindal said Saturday.

The governor said that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where the 23 samples are being tested, warned the state to get prepared.

“The CDC is telling us to expect a high rate of confirmation,” Jindal said during a news conference at the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Office of Emergency Preparedness.

“They said there has been a disproportionately high number of confirmed cases in the samples they’ve tested so far,” he said.

Because the CDC has been inundated with samples from all over the country it will take two to four days before the test results are known, Jindal said.

The first eight samples were sent to the CDC on Thursday, one was sent Friday, and 14 were sent Saturday.

The four parochial schools in Lafayette Parish where state health officials suspect there may be a cluster of cases will be closed Monday and could stay closed for up to two weeks, Jindal said.

The schools are St. Pius, Our Lady of Fatima, Ascension Episcopal and Cathedral Carmel.

“The CDC issued new guidance in regards to closing schools,” Jindal said. “Earlier last week, the CDC recommended that schools should close for seven days.

“Now the CDC is recommending they close up to 14 days or only reopen 24 hours after the last child diagnosed shows no symptoms of the disease.”

Seventeen people in Lafayette Parish are suspected of having swine flu; 14 of those are students in the four schools, Jindal said.

He did not say how many suspected cases were in each school except for Ascension Episcopal, where he said there was one suspected case.

He pointed out that none of the 17 people is related, meaning there are no clusters within a family so far.