Despite school closings, officials urge calm

SPRINGFIELD - Sheer panic over swine flu may be unnecessary. With fewer than a couple dozen probable cases in Illinois and one death in the United States, overwhelming attention to the illness could be causing more panic than is needed, experts say.

Chicago and suburban schools were quick to close down and cancel events to prevent further spread at any sign of a student carrying the swine flu strain known as the H1N1 virus.

"At this point, school closure decisions are being made on a district level. There are no national recommendations for doing so," said Dr. Mark Dworkin, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "The rationale for doing it is to slow down transmission in the area."

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 36,000 Americans die from influenza each year.

Experts say at this time the threat of swine flu is not as high as that of seasonal flu. Since January, 13,000 people have died from complications to the regular flu.

"In the United States, the mortality rate is still being determined and most cases have recovered some without hospitalization, which is typical of the seasonal flu, which is encouraging," said Dworkin.

Dworkin said there are no signs of an outbreak among pigs. Rockford School officials recently canceled a kiss-a-pig event out of fear.

"I wouldn't worry about them getting the swine flu from a pig, although there are other unsanitary issues to worry about there," he said.

The World Health Organization has even stopped using the term "swine flu" because there is no confirmed danger posed by pigs. People in Egypt began to panic and slaughter nearly 300,000 pigs, while Americans as well as people in other countries are throwing out pork.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the term "swine flu" was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to ban pork products and order the slaughter of pigs.

"Rather than calling this swine flu ... we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A," Thompson said.