A 6-year-old Cowley County child has died after being sick with the H1N1 Flu, also known as Swine Flu, health officials said Wednesday.
The illness was confirmed as H1N1 flu at the state public health laboratory Aug. 25 and the child’s death was reported to the Kansas Dept. of Health and Environment Sept. 3.?
The state would not confirm that the child was from Cowley County but Marsha Donals, a spokesperson for the City-Cowley County Health Dept., said the child was from this county. Both state and local officials said the child had underlying chronic health problems that may have contributed to the illness being fatal.
"We know that certain individuals are at increased risk," Maggie Thompson, public relations director for KDHE, said.
Health officials did not say whether the child was male or female.
School district officials in Arkansas City and Winfield said that it was unclear whether the child had been attending classes locally.
Winfield Superintendent Marvin Estes said he knew of no child that had been hospitalized with H1N1.
"Of course we wouldn’t necessarily know," he said. "If the child had become ill and then was kept home from school as they became sicker, we may not have known."
Estes said he was unaware of any confirmed cases in Winfield schools.
"I don’t believe it has affected us yet," he said. "But we know it will."
Dr. Ron Ballard, superintendent in Ark City, said his district was doing an independent review to determine whether the child might have attended Ark City schools.
He was planning to speak with the district’s health care professionals Friday morning.
"Usually if someone was hospitalized we’d know, it’s still a small enough community where word travels quickly," he said. "But we are going to do a check on our own to see what we can find out."
Thompson, KDHE’s spokesperson, said she understood that the public would like as much information as possible in regard to H1N1 cases. But, she said, laws prevent the release of information that might lead to a person being identified by name.
State officials also have confirmed that an inmate at the Winfield Correctional Facility has the H1N1 virus. That inmate has been quarantined as part of a system developed to prevent the spread of the disease, according to Chuck Simmons with the Kansas Dept. of Corrections.
The Winfield case is the first to be confirmed within the state’s correctional system.
