Swine flu symptoms spreading beyond Windsor, N.S., campus

Public health officials in Nova Scotia say the swine flu will likely spread across the province over the next few weeks.

Four students at a private school in Windsor have contracted the virus. Officials believe students who went on a school trip to Mexico carried it back to Nova Scotia.

Dr. Robert Strang, the province's chief public health officer, said the first signs of the flu have surfaced among friends and relatives of King's-Edgehill students.

"As we talk to families of students in King's-Edgehill, there have been people in the families that are sick — not a surprise," Strang told CBC News on Monday.

"We are hearing reports that there's more people going to the local emergency room. So we are starting to see signs of this moving beyond the campus beyond the school."

Strang said since the flu is already in the province, it could be a matter of weeks before it spreads across Nova Scotia.

"Right now this is not creating serious illness. That may change, it may not change. So what people have to understand is this is a very fluid changing situation and the advice they get from public health officials, and people may change over time," he said.

Unlike in Mexico, where the swine flu is believed to have killed about 100 people, the virus has been "relatively mild" in Nova Scotia, Strang said. None of the four students was hospitalized.

Strang said the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirmed the four cases of the H1N1 virus late Saturday. Of the four students, who range in age from 12 to 18, only one was on a recent school trip to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

School trips off, classes continuing

The school has cancelled off-campus sports and field trips, but classes are continuing as normal.

Headmaster Joe Seagram said Sunday that the school has a separate medical facility and students who are ill with the flu will be asked to go into isolation for seven days.

People infected with the virus initially suffer flu-like symptoms that include:

• Fever.
• Cough.
• Sore throat.
• Muscle and joint pain.
• Shortness of breath.

The illness may elevate to a severe respiratory illness within about five days.

Strang urges Nova Scotians to take the usual steps to protect from catching the flu, such as regular handwashing and avoiding people who are sick. He said people who have flu symptoms should call a family doctor, and not head to a hospital emergency rooms.