In less than a month, the number of confirmed swine flu cases in Fort Bend County has shot up by more than 300% – from 11 on May 21 to 48 as of June 18.
Fort Bend County health officials weren’t immediately available to comment on those numbers, but the increase in confirmed cases doesn’t necessarily reflect a new wave of the pandemic flu moving through the county.
In May, there were 316 “suspected” cases of swine flu in Fort Bend County, also referred to as H1N1 flu. Patients suspected of having the disease have reported a fever of more than 100 degrees as well as a cough and sore throat, according to the Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management.
And in late May, county Health and Human Services Department Deputy
Director Kaye Reynolds said warmer weather already seemed to be leading to a definite slowing in new cases of the new flu.
Nonetheless, as of today, 311 suspected cases still are listed in Fort
Bend County, and one “probable” case involving an unidentified patient with an “unsubtypeable type A virus,” according to the “Swine Flue” Information web page.
An overwhelmed regional laboratory in Houston has resulted in a backlog of patients awaiting test results to determine if they have indeed contracted swine flu. That backlog is represented in the large number of suspected but as yet undetermined swine flu cases.
Meanwhile, statistics as of Thursday from the Texas Department of State
Health Services shows 2,354 confirmed cases of swine flu statewide.
Fort Bend is not among the counties with the greatest number of cases.
Those include No. 1 Hidalgo, with 534 cases; Cameron, with 282; El Paso, with 198; Coryell, with 195; and adjacent Harris County, with 171 confirmed cases.
On June 11, the World Health Organization raised swine flu to a “Phase 6″ flue pandemic alert, saying “on the basis of available evidence and expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met.”
While Reynolds and other health officials have said they expect swine flu incidents to dwindle during the hot summer months, they also expect the new flu virus to return in the fall.
