More than 225 children have "mild" flu at 3 Ontario summer camps

[thebes]

Some 225 children at three Ontario camps have mild swine flu: official
By THE CANADIAN PRESS ? 8 minutes ago

TORONTO ? A health official says more than 225 children at three Ontario summer camps have come down with H1N1 influenza.

The cases, all said to be mild, are in the central Ontario region of Simcoe-Muskoka.

The Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit says none of the affected campers have required hospitalization.

Dr. Charles Gardner, the region's medical officer of health, would not say which camps are involved but added parents with children at the camps have been notified.

He says those detected with the flu represent almost 20 per cent of the children at the three camps.

Parents are being urged to screen their children for symptoms of the flu before sending them to camp.

There are no plans to close any camps because of the flu.

Provincial guidelines issued last month say summer camps have the potential to be a high-risk setting for transmitting swine flu because children and young adults are in close quarters for extended periods of time.

The guidelines say a day camp experiencing more than 10 per cent of campers or staff ill or absent due to influenza-like illness should be considered to have an outbreak.

In the case of camps with children with special needs, the guidelines say one case of swine flu may be enough to be considered an outbreak given the high-risk nature of the campers.

An Ontario Ministry of Health spokesman said the province is leaving the monitoring of cases at the camps to the local health unit.

"From our point of view we expected that this had the potential of happening," said David Jensen, who added the cases at the three camps are "mainly localized."

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[hornblower]

Re: More than 225 children have "mild" flu at 3 Ontario summer camps

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/07/15/camp-ontario-swine-outbreak015.html

Swine flu hits 3 Ontario summer camps
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 | 2:57 PM ET

CBC News
Dozens of children at three summer camps in Ontario's Muskoka region have been sent home after an outbreak of swine flu, health officials said Wednesday.

While most of the 227 children affected have left the camps, children whose parents weren't available or children from out of the country, are staying put, said Dr. Charles Gardner, medical officer of health for the Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit.

Camp officials sent e-mails and telephoned parents with children at the affected camps.

Gardner said most of the cases are mild and that the children were sent home to make it easier for the camps to manage the remaining children.

He said it's likely some campers had the H1N1 virus when they arrived and it quickly spread.

The outbreak has affected three camps in the Simcoe-Muskoka region, about 150 kilometres north of Toronto, but officials aren't naming the camps, citing confidentiality rules as their reason.

Health officials aren't recommending parents remove their children from other camps, but they do say children should remain at home if they have flu-like symptoms.

As of Wednesday, there have been 9,855 confirmed cases of swine flu across Canada. Of those, 902 cases have been hospitalized. Thirty-nine people who contracted the disease have died, says the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The World Health Organization in early June declared the spread of the virus had reached pandemic level, the first time a global flu epidemic has occurred in the past 41 years. The organization raised its pandemic alert level to Phase 6, the highest on the scale.