Advocate staff writer
Published: Mar 23, 2010 - Page: 1A
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GRAPHIC/The Advocate
Swine flu vaccine clinics will be held at parish health units statewide this week after doctors and hospitals across the South reported a recent increase in flulike illnesses, a state health official said.
State health workers are concerned that the increase of cases in the South — including Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina — might signal another major outbreak of the disease, said Dr. Frank Welch, director of pandemic preparedness for Louisiana.
The last major outbreak occurred in October, he said.
“But H1N1 has proved that it can stick around,” Welch said.
The disease has traveled around the globe, even to the Southern Hemisphere during its winter months.
“And H1N1 has continued to spread at decent levels,” Welch said.
Most of the U.S., however, is seeing a decline in the numbers of new cases, except for the South, he said.
Louisiana is already detecting an increase in flu cases in the Shreveport and Lafayette areas, Welch said.
“The increase in cases is all around us,” he said. “We think we’re going to start experiencing in Louisiana what the rest of the South is experiencing this coming week.”
Welch said that nearly all of the flu cases reported are believed to be swine flu.
“H1N1 has really been dominant this year,” he said.
Since H1N1 has been so dominant, only samples from patients with flulike symptoms in hospitals and those who see one of the 54 state Department of Health and Hospitals sentinel doctors across the state are tested specifically for swine flu, Welch said.
No one is sure why the increase in swine flu cases is occurring.
“More than anything you can attribute the increase to the way pandemics go, especially this one,” Welch said. “It’s unpredictable.”
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