Crew member aboard a cruise ship in Alaska waters is recovering from what health officials suspect is swine flu

seattletimes.nwsource.com

Swine flu suspected in crew member on cruise ship

By MARY PEMBERTON
Associated Press Writer
ANCHORAGE, Alaska —
A crew member aboard a cruise ship in Alaska waters is recovering from what health officials suspect is swine flu.
The female crew member of the Serenade of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship, became ill May 2 while sailing from San Francisco northward. The woman was isolated two days later and was treated with antiviral medication, Dr. Jay Butler, Alaska's chief medical officer, said Sunday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified Alaska health officials over the weekend that there was a probable case of swine flu aboard the ship.
Testing was performed at the Washington State Public Health Laboratory and forwarded to the CDC. The CDC is in the process of validating the results, which were expected Monday.
In the meantime, the state conducted its own testing on a sample taken in Ketchikan when the ship docked there. That sample was sent Friday to the new virology lab at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and came back negative on Saturday.
Those results were not a surprise, Butler said, because the woman had already been three days on Tamiflu, an anti-viral medication effective against swine flu, and for several days had no fever.
The swine flu has been blamed for 53 deaths worldwide, including 48 in Mexico, three in the U.S., one in Canada and one in Costa Rica.
Confirmed cases, according to the World Health Organization and CDC are more than 4,500 in 29 countries, including at least 1,626 in Mexico, at least 2,532 in the United States and 280 in Canada.
On April 18, before embarking for Alaska, the Serenade of the Seas departed San Juan, Puerto Rico. During the 14-night Panama Canal voyage it visited Huatulco and Acapulco, Mexico.
On May 2, the ship departed San Francisco for a 14-night voyage to southeast Alaska and Canada.
No other cases of suspected swine flu have been diagnosed aboard the ship.
Butler said the ship's medical staff followed strict isolation procedures to prevent the spread of the illness.