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The H1N1 flu virus has started spreading among Iowa students, as experts predicted it would when the school year resumed. Iowa State University reported Friday that three students have come down with confirmed cases of the new flu this month. Also Friday, the East Marshall school district in Gilman became the first Iowa school district to report a confirmed case this fall. Earlier this week, Central College officials said one of their students had gone home after coming down with the new flu. None of the reported cases was serious enough to require hospitalization, officials said.

Iowa State officials said their student health center is more likely than many other clinics to report confirmed cases because it’s part of a statewide network of flu-surveillance sites. Most doctors’ offices are testing patients with flu-like symptoms only if they are either severely ill, have other health problems or are part of a cluster of suspicious cases. The surveillance sites are testing more often than that.

More possible cases of H1N1 are being reported in Iowa as the state and the nation prepare for a fall outbreak.
Infections are reported in at least four areas so far, with 5 confirmed cases in Marshall County.
There are also possible cases at Central College in Pella, and Drake University in Des Moines.
Students have been back on campus for just over a week at Iowa State in Ames and already student health leaders said they have confirmed cases of H1N1...Iowa State is working with the Iowa Department of Public Health as part of its influenza surveillance network. Public Health is only testing a limited number of samples from the university, so it's difficult to know the exact number of cases. Iowa State will send its first ten samples to be tested and that way help public health officials better gauge the rate of infection...

An illness that has more than 100 students away from classes at East Marshall schools has not officially been linked to H1N1.

Liz Zuercher, public relations manager at Marshalltown Medical & Surgical Center, said Tuesday there are still five confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus in the county.

Health officials expected H1N1 cases to spike when children returned to school, but so far just one H1N1 case has been connected to the East Marshall School District.

Yet, more than 100 students didn't report for classes Tuesday.

East Marshall Superintendent Alan Meyer said about 60 students were absent from the middle school in Gilman Tuesday, 50 were missing at the elementary school in Laurel and 16 were absent at the high school in LeGrand.

District-wide the attendance rate at East Marshall was at 86 percent when it usually is in the middle to high 90s. Meyer said the all of the absences were not because of the H1N1 virus. Meyer declined to say which school had the H1N1 case.

"We have a number of students out both as precautionary measures or showing flu-like symptoms," Meyer said.

Schools in East Marshall are relatively small so the 60 that are absent at the middle school in Gilman represent over 1/4 of the student body:

East Marshall Middle School
public · 5-8 · 262 students
225 S Elm
Gilman, IA 50106
(641) 498-7483
District: East Marshall Comm School District

http://www.greatschools.net/iowa/gilman ... ools/?lc=m

Even before Monday, the Lisbon School District was ready. “We’re on the cutting edge with our readiness for this,” said superintendent Brad Laures. He’s referring to the district’s ability to handle cases of H1N1 flu, a virus that caused concern in Lisbon earlier this week. For a time Monday, the school believed it had a case of the “new” flu, a situation that thrust the district into the media limelight. By the end of the day, however, the case was deemed unconfirmed. “We acted with the best information we had to keep our kids safe,” Laures said of the situation. “We communicated what we knew when we knew it.” The issue was this: Over the weekend, the school received a report from a parent that a student had tested positive for H1N1. Laures said administrators, teachers and nurse Julie Light were in communication with the parent, and the district used its website Monday morning to communicate the news to the public.

After further investigation, Laures said, the school district determined later on Monday that there was no positive test. It did learn of a positive case of Influenza A.