RALEIGH (AP) ó A resident of Onslow County who recently traveled to Texas is North Carolina’s first confirmed case of swine flu, Gov. Beverly Perdue said Sunday.
Perdue told reporters at the Department of Health and Human Services that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the case.
“Let me reassure all of you that North Carolina is as prepared, and some of us believe, more prepared, than any state in the country,” Perdue said. “We have had an emergency center up and running for more than a week in case this day came, and here it is.”
Perdue said everyone who has been in contact with the patient are following CDC isolation guidelines, as is the patient. No secondary cases have been reported so far.
The governor stressed to the state’s residents and visitors that they should take the necessary precautions, such as washing their hands thoroughly, covering their mouths when they sneeze or cough and stay at home if they feel sick.
State health director Dr. Jeffrey Engel would neither identify nor give any details about the patient, except to say a couple who had traveled to San Antonio acquired the disease. Engel said he didn’t know when they had been there, but did say that they had been there for around five days when they picked up the flu.
Engel said the couple has been ordered into isolation for seven days after the initial manifestation of symptoms, and the spouse is a probable case awaiting CDC confirmation, possibly on Monday. Neither has been to the hospital, he said.
“None of their contacts has become ill,” Engel said.
So far, the state lab has handled 413 samples and had 320 come back negative. Of those, 65 are still outstanding, Engel said. Six cases are probable and one test involving a traveler from Wake County is being rerun because the results were inconclusive, he said.
Engel also pointed to four probable cases in Craven County, and those cases are in a cluster and are in isolation in keeping with CDC guidelines.
The tally released Sunday by the CDC also shows 30 states now have cases of swine flu. That’s up from the CDC’s count of 160 confirmed cases in 21 states.