Jun 4, 2009 7:58 pm US/Pacific
Concord Girl Becomes 1st Bay Area Swine Flu Death
CONCORD (CBS 5 / KCBS / AP / BCN) ―
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DNA test kits of the the influenza A(H1N1) or Swine Flu virus.
Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Health officials on Thursday confirmed the Bay Area's first swine flu death.
A young Contra Costa County girl had been diagnosed with the H1N1 virus before she died late last week, according to Dr. Wendel Brunner, Contra Costa's public health director.
The county coroner's office identified her as 9-year-old Karen Perez of Concord. The girl's funeral and burial took place Thursday afternoon.
The victim also had another bacterial infection. State and county health officials were studying what role it may have played in her death.
She was not believed to have had any other underlying medical issues, Brunner said.
Richard Nicoll, superintendent of the Mount Diablo Unified School District, said that Karen attended El Monte Elementary School at 1400 Dina Drive in Concord. Grief counselors were at the school to help students and teachers cope with the news of Karen's death, he added.
Health officials said Perez had not attended class for more than seven days — the incubation time during which the disease could have been transmitted so they have not asked the victim's school to close. All schools in the county are now open.
"Further precautions are not necessary," said Dr. Brunner. "The virus is widespread throughout the county and there's really no point in closing schools. That's not an effective strategy at this time."
No one else in Karen's family has fallen ill, he said.
Brunner said the county stopped testing suspected incidents of swine flu. Health officials believe there are now several times that number of cases in the county, but most patients have mild or moderate cases and recover quickly.
"[Now] we only test a few of the cases, the more severe cases, or cases if we have a particular reason or need to identify the virus," Brunner said.
Most states have switched from testing all suspected cases of swine flu to focusing on the care of individuals who are hospitalized or suffering serious flu-like symptoms, said Bonnie Sorensen, chief deputy director of policy and programs for the California Department of Public Health.
"It's continuing to spread throughout the country, and it's in all of our counties, so not necessary to be documenting all of the cases at this point," she said. "The idea is to follow the trend and focus our attention and resources on the folks who are most seriously ill."
Since the virus was detected in the U.S. in April, swine flu has now been blamed for three deaths in California and at least 20 deaths nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A San Bernardino County man in his 40s, who suffered from pneumonia, heart disease, high blood pressure and obesity was California's first swine flu death in mid-May. A woman who lived in central Los Angeles also diagnosed with the virus died at a hospital in late May.
As of Thursday, state officials said California had seen 798 confirmed cases of the virus.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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