Texas family under quarantine for swine flu

CNN:

As Hayden Henshaw was being rushed to the doctor's office after becoming ill, his father heard that his son's classmates had been struck with the deadly swine flu virus like the one sweeping through Mexico.

Patrick Henshaw called his wife immediately to have Hayden checked for it. Later, they received the bad news.

Hayden had become the third confirmed case of swine flu at his Texas high school. It is a virus that has killed 68 people in Mexico and infected at least eight people in the United States.

Health officials arrived at the Henshaws' house Friday and drew blood from the whole family, then told them to stay inside and away from the public, Henshaw told CNN.

The whole family is quarantined indefinitely, according to CNN-affiliate KABB. Henshaw said his family was shocked when they got the news about their son.

"Stunned. My wife was having a panic attack," Henshaw told the affiliate.

...

The new virus has genes from North American swine influenza, avian influenza, human influenza and a form of swine influenza normally found in Asia and Europe, said Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC's Influenza Division.

Swine flu is caused by a virus similar to a type of flu virus that infects people every year but is a strain typically found only in pigs -- or in people who have direct contact with pigs.

There have, however, been cases of person-to-person transmission of swine flu, the CDC said.

I assume there is an investigation underway to determine from whom or what these people contracted the flu. It has initially been reported as an offshoot of the swine flu which developed in China some time ago, but has mutated in Mexico.

It is unlikely that the same mutation could have spontaneously developed in Texas, Kansas and New York. It will be interesting to see what connection, if any these victims had with people or products from Mexico.

Unfortunately for Mexico, this is another reason, along with the criminal insurgency, for people to postpone visits to the country. President Calderon appears to be acting to prevent the spread of the disease.

The San Antonio Express-News says the Texas outbreak was in the Schertz-Ciblo area east of the city. At least one school has closed for the week and students have been told not to mingle. Two of the three students with suspected cases have already recovered. Schertz is pronounced "Shirts." When I worked for the Austin American-Stateman sports department we used to hve fun with headlines about the schools football team when they got defeated. "____ rips Schertz" was one of the favorites. I hope get "taken to the cleaners," in a good way with this current situation, of course.