State Health Lab Works to Confirm Possible Swine Flu Cases

The Kentucky Department of Health hopes to be able to confirm the state’s cases of swine flu in-house later this week or next week. Right now the lab has to send samples from cases it deems ‘probable’ to the Centers for Disease Control for confirmation, which can take up to two weeks.Spokesperson Gwenda Bond says they’re working to calibrate the state lab so they can confirm cases there.“CDC has provided what we call re-agents to state laboratories," says Bond, "but because the test must be calibrated by giving back a confirmed result on five cases that have already been confirmed by CDC, that’s a delay because we’re waiting to get confirmation back on the samples we’ve submitted.”So far, the state lab can only deem cases ‘probable’. They’ve done so with five cases. They are in Hardin, Daviess, Montgomery and Fayette counties, and the Barren River Health District in western Kentucky.There was a confirmed case in a person from Warren County, who had traveled to Georgia.