Swine flu will keep Batavia schools closed until end of the week

Two Batavia public schools shuttered because of the swine flu outbreak will remain closed a few days longer than originally planned, officials announced this weekend.

The bulletin came as state health officials increased the total number of confirmed or suspected cases in Illinois to 99.

Rotolo Middle School will remain off-limits until Thursday, May 7. Batavia High School won't reopen until Friday, May 8.

Both schools are in Batavia School District 101 and had been set to reopen Monday.

The announcement on the district Web site, bps101.net, said the closings were being extended based on a recommendation from the Kane County Health Department.

All student activities, practices and meetings planned for these buildings are canceled. That includes all home and away athletic competitions and practices and all extracurricular activities.

Community events or meetings planned for the two buildings until the quarantine lifts are canceled, too.

Additionally, health officials said students and staffers from the two schools should not gather in groups. That would defeat the goal of disrupting disease transmission, according to the announcement on the district Web site.

"The ongoing cooperation of student, staff and community is essential to ensure the safety of our children," Superintendent Jack Barshinger said in the online statement. "Our goal is to have our schools open as soon as possible. In order to accomplish that goal, it will take the cooperation of everyone."

Eleven probable cases of swine flu have been discovered in Kane County, but none has been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Test results were expected over weekend but hadn't come in as of Sunday afternoon.

A probable case is one that's been tested by state health department labs and is highly probable for having H1N1, state health department spokeswoman Kelly Jakubek said. A case is listed as confirmed when it tests positive with the CDC.

The most recent Kane County cases were reported Saturday.

County Health Department spokesman Tom Schlueter called waiting for the results frustrating but said the county is following the CDC's recommendations to prevent the spread of the disease "as best we can."

Other Kane County schools have been shut down because of the outbreak. Haines Middle in St. Charles is closed through Thursday, while Marmion Academy in Aurora closed late last week but is scheduled to reopen Monday.

St. Edward Central Catholic High school in Elgin was shut down, too, but neither its Web site nor its telephone answering system contained information about the outbreak or when it planned to reopen.

Elgin's Larkin High School and Streamwood's Ridge Circle Elementary both have been closed until Friday, May 8, not Monday, May 11, as reported earlier.

As of Sunday morning, the CDC had confirmed 226 H1N1 flu cases nationwide, including three in Illinois. One person, in Texas, has died from the disease in the U.S., according to the agency.

New York has the most confirmed cases, 63. Texas follows with 40.

In Illinois, 96 probable cases - in addition to the three confirmed cases - had been discovered by Sunday morning, according to the Illinois Health Department Web site, idph.state.il.us. The only confirmed cases here have been in Chicago and DuPage County, the site said.

Two probable cases have been reported in Lake County, but neither will require school closings, Lake County Health Department spokeswoman Leslie Piotrowski said Sunday.

One case involves a 7-year-old Lake Bluff boy who very recently moved to the area from New York and hadn't yet been enrolled in school, Piotrowski said.

The other case involves a 34-year-old Round Lake man with a history of travel to Mexico, she said.

Neither person has been hospitalized, and both are recovering at home, Piotrowski said.

Of the 28 cases reported so far in suburban Cook County, a few have resulted in hospitalizations, spokeswoman Amy Poore said.

A Streamwood boy, a Wheeling boy and a Glenview man are among those with probable cases.

Unlike the Streamwood case, the health department has not recommended closing the Wheeling boy's school because the child has not been in class since the symptoms appeared, Poore said.

"There was a low potential for transmission... (and) there had been no recent changes in absenteeism rates," she said. "If we didn't think that it was safe to go to school, we would have recommended closure."

DuPage County was holding steady Sunday with 11 probable case and one confirmed case, officials said.

McHenry County health officials only have one probable case, a 40-year-old McHenry man who recently traveled to Mexico, spokeswoman Debra Quackenbush said.

The patient's symptoms are mild and he is recovering at home.

The CDC on Sunday was scheduled to complete deployment of 25 percent of the flu-drug supplies in the Strategic National Stockpile to all states in the continental U.S. These supplies and medicines will help states and U.S. territories respond to the outbreak, the CDC reported on its Web site, cdc.gov.

The federal government and drug manufacturers are developing a vaccine against the new virus, the CDC said.

State health officials insisted people should continue with regularly scheduled daily activities while taking precautions such as washing your hands and covering your mouth if you cough.

Conversely, you should stay home if you're sick, a health department spokeswoman said.

Anti-flu drugs such as Tamiflu are not necessary to treat mild cases, McHenry County's Quackenbush said. Home recovery will do the job in most cases, she said.

• Daily Herald staff writers Jack Komperda and Steve Zalusky contributed to this report.