Camps Seeing Outbreaks Of Swine Flu, Agency Says

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times

Although it is fading in much of the nation as warmer weather comes on, swine flu is causing outbreaks in summer camps just as it has in schools, federal officials said Thursday.

The illness has hospitalized 1,600 Americans, most of them young, and is blamed in 44 deaths, the officials said. It is most persistent in the Northeast, and nearly 90 percent of the flu cases that are tested nationally are the new swine H1N1, not seasonal flu.

The advice to camp administrators and parents is basically the same as for schools, said Dr. Daniel B. Jernigan, deputy director of the flu division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Camps should be on the alert for sick children, who should be kept home for a week or until 24 hours after symptoms have finished. (Not all camps offer refunds, the American Camp Association noted.) Parents should be prepared to take sick children home on short notice.

Religious camps in Clayton, Ga.; Santa Rosa, Calif.; and Cleveland, and a Boy Scout camp near Asheville, N.C., all reported probable swine flu cases in local newspapers this week. The C.D.C. also said that many hospitals and clinics were not doing enough to prevent the spread of flu within their walls.

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