Apr 28, 2009 12:36 pm US/Eastern
2 Lowell Students Tested For Possible Swine Flu
LOWELL (WBZ) ―
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Two siblings in Lowell are being tested for possibly having the swine flu.
Read: Swine Flu: What You Need To Know
Both students traveled to Mexico with their family over school vacation week.
The kids, whose ages are not yet known, are being treated for a flu-like virus. Lowell's superintendent said both students attend private school, but the mother is a teacher's aide at a public school. The mother has not gone to school since her return and according to the superintendent, she does not appear to be sick.
The names of the students and the schools they attend have not been made public. "The kids are home," said Lowell Health Dir. Frank Singleton. "They never got to school and there's not other cases of illness reported in that family."
Nasal swabs were done on both students and sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. State officials are waiting for confirmation from the CDC. Health officials expect to have the test results on Tuesday.
Singleton says Lowell is ready if the tests come back positive. "We will look at close contact when the kids were symptomatic, who they played with, not necessarily casual contact, and see if they have any signs of symptoms because obviously playmates might have gone to school."
Local researchers at Boston's Children's Hospital are helping the CDC disseminate information quickly. They developed
Healthmap, a pet project a few years ago that's grown into an online resource for articles and tracking information about infectious diseases around the globe. "We get new reports every minute about new cases and existing cases," said Clark Freiferd, researcher for both Children's and MIT, talking about the quickly moving swine flu. They also have more than 17-hundred followers on Twitter, an indication of just how thirsty people are for information about the disease.
Lowell schools superintendent Chris Scott told WBZ they are monitoring the situation, but not taking any action at this time.
The CDC said Monday there has been five hospitalizations for swine flu in the United States that officials know about, although some 64 cases have been identified.
There are no confirmed cases in Massachusetts.
Dr. Anita Barry of the Boston Public Health Commission says the city's hospitals are on high alert. They also track whether swine flu has entered the state by monitoring emergency room visits and checking what kinds of illnesses patients are being treated for. She believes it's just a matter of time before the flu arrives in Boston. "There has been a tremendous geographic variation in a short period of time," she tells WBZ.
Department of Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach and Dr. Al DeMaria, director of Communicable Disease Control, said Monday that officials have tested about two dozen cases in accordance with protocol from the CDC.
None of those cases have been positive for swine flu.
Auerbach says the state expects to receive antiviral treatments next week from the federal government.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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