Story Published: May 4, 2009 at 7:30 PM PST
The phones just keep ringing. Workers at the Umatilla County Public Health Department had a busy weekend. And it's about to get worse. On Friday, the first probable case of swine flu popped up. By Monday morning, a second probable case.
And by the end of business Monday, one probable came back as confirmed. Making it official: swine flu is in Umatilla County.
Here's what we know about the one confirmed case, the woman is in her late 50s and lives in Hermiston. The health department says she returned from Mexico a couple weeks ago. And we're told the woman is recovering at home with no complications.
"I would not panic. We're not in panic mode we're in heightened awareness and that's good. let the health department do their job," said Gennie Lehnert with Umatilla Public Health.
That job includes field surveillance. The health department sends out nurses when a flu case pops up. A local doctor's test will raise a red flag, then that gets sent to the state for testing.
If a probable case comes in, the health department's surveillance team goes out to talk to family and tries to pin down the source of the infection.
"This is what local health departments do best. We're the silent invisible soldiers quietly working behind the scenes and when something big hits we're prepared and educated and ready to respond."
The testing turnaround is about to get a lot better in Oregon. Last week, all tests had to go through the CDC, but as of this week the state of Oregon now has the authority to confirm cases. That means no more waiting for the CDC and all their backlog.
There are still no probable cases of H1N1 in Benton and Franklin counties, though a handful were sent out for testing.
