Tarrant records 1st swine flu death as ERs, clinics see 'tons of kids’

Tarrant records 1st swine flu death as ERs, clinics see 'tons of kids’

Posted Tuesday, Sep. 29, 2009
By JAN JARVIS

The swine flu deaths of a 14-year-old Leonard Middle School student and a 16-year-old high school student in Richardson in recent days come as hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices across North Texas are swamped with sick children.

Cook Children’s Medical Center has been averaging 500 to 600 patients with flu-like symptoms each week in its emergency department, nearly double the 300 usually seen by physicians. About five children have been admitted. Countywide, 23 people have been hospitalized, according to Tarrant County Public Health.

Since school started, 1,640 children have tested positive for Type A influenza at doctor’s offices in the Cook’s Physicians Network. H1N1 is one strain of Type A flu, but most current cases are believed to be H1N1.

The emergency department at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth is seeing about 50 patients a day with flu-like symptoms, twice what it typically sees during the height of the seasonal flu.

In the last three weeks, Arlington pediatrician Maria Fisher said her office has been hit hard by patients with symptoms of H1N1.
"I’ve seen tons of kids," she said. "And almost every single kid I’ve seen has had it."

Chloe Lindsey, who attended middle school in Fort Worth, died Sunday at Cook Children’s after coming down with flu-like symptoms Wednesday. In Richardson, the 16-year-old student, who was not identified, had multiple chronic medical conditions before becoming infected with H1N1 and dying last week, Dallas County Health and Human Services said Tuesday.

Since August, five Dallas County residents with H1N1 have died, including a healthy 14-year-old Garland girl and a 3-year-old from Dallas.

Texas has had 44 H1N1-associated deaths, including seven children, according to Doug McBride, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Although H1N1 has caused six recent deaths in North Texas, it is no more virulent than the influenza that first struck the area in April.
But "the virus has become widespread and it’s finding more targets," said Dr. Sandra Parker, medical director at Tarrant County Public Health.

- more at www.star-telegram.com/health/story/1645515.htm