A TOTAL of 18 outbreaks of swine flu have been reported in the Republic to date, including one in a hotel. Details of the outbreaks come in a report compiled by the national Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) which says the numbers of people who succumbed to the virus during each outbreak ranged from between two and 150 people.
The HPSC report says 13 outbreaks occurred in family settings, one was in a hotel, one involved travelling companions and three occurred in educational settings. Three Irish colleges in the Donegal Gaeltacht have closed in the past week due to outbreaks of pandemic H1N1 flu.
Information on another outbreak, which began earlier this week among language students on the campus of the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) in Galway city, emerged yesterday.
In a statement, the college said three cases of swine flu had been confirmed among young Italian students attending a summer language course run by an English language company called MLI on the GMIT campus.
“The students have been quarantined at their accommodation in line with HSE regulations under the supervision of two medical doctors who are accompanying the group throughout their stay in Galway,” a college spokeswoman said.
“Since the cases were confirmed on Tuesday all of the other remaining students in the group have not attended any activities on the GMIT campus,” she added.
She stressed GMIT is open as normal and all appropriate precautions advised by the HSE for third-level colleges in the context of dealing with the swine flu pandemic were in place.
Meanwhile, the latest HPSC report indicates the highest rate of confirmed swine flu activity over the past week has been in the northwest.
The total number of laboratory confirmed cases of swine flu in the State to date stands at 513 and most of these – some 218 cases – have been reported in the east. But all regions have been affected.
However, not all cases now require laboratory confirmation and its estimated about 1,400 people a week are presenting to GPs around the country with flu- like illness.
The HPSC report also reveals that among those who have been hospitalised with swine flu to date here have been pregnant women, who are considered to be in a higher risk group.
They also include people with chronic heart disease, chronic liver disease, chronic respiratory disease, asthma, immunosuppression, and diabetes.
In addition, an 18-year-old Sligo woman with cystic fibrosis (CF) who contracted swine flu died at Dublin’s Tallaght hospital a week ago.
More than 40 per cent of people hospitalised with swine flu in the State so far have had pre-existing clinical conditions.
Meanwhile, the mother of a teenage girl whose cystic fibrosis is being treated at the National Children’s Hospital in Tallaght has expressed concern that her daughter is being accommodated in a room next to a boy with “suspected” swine flu. Both patients are in single rooms but she said it seemed to be the worst place to put suspected swine flu patients, given the risk to CF patients of cross-infection.
A spokeswoman for Tallaght hospital said all national protocols and international best practice were being followed in the treatment of suspected cases of H1N1 flu at the hospital. All were put into isolation rooms, as were CF patients, she said.