WILLAMINA — A toddler in this Yamhill County community was diagnosed with the flu Friday at the tribal clinic in Grand Ronde, leading to precautionary closures of the tribal education center in Grand Ronde and local public schools in both Grand Ronde and Willamina.

While health officials say it’s more likely the toddler is suffering from one of the more common strains of Influenza A, rather than the new swine flu strain, it will take further testing to determine that for sure. And the toddler had contact with two Willamina School District students, though neither are showing any flu symptoms to date.

Western Oregon University, located in the nearby Polk County community of Monmouth, was also shut down Friday. Authorities said they had one probable case at the school and another in Multnomah County.

The local flu case arose in the midst of overlapping jurisdictions, including the city of Willamina, Willamina School District, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and counties of Polk and Yamhill, which divide both the city and school district.

Superintendent Gus Forster took the precautionary measure of canceling classes and extracurricular activities in the school district, and tribal authorities followed suit at their education center.

Sarah Bates of Yamhill County Public Health learned Friday morning that the Grand Ronde Health & Wellness Center had diagnosed a case of influenza A in a 2-year-old.

The school district closure was initially attributed to diagnosis of a student with the flu, and the News-Register posted that online.

A couple of hours later, Bates clarified that, saying the latest reports indicated it was a sibling of two students. A couple of hours after that, she said a more detailed report indicated the toddler and students weren’t actually from the same family, but had come into close contact with one another.

Joining reporters in the struggle to get on top of a fast-moving story crossing multiple jurisdictional lines, Bates said late Friday, “I would just stress that the information we have is that school-age kids were not sick. It was a toddler who was a household contact.”

Lacking any information about the toddler’s travel or prior contact history, she said officials were inclined to suspect it would ultimately turn out to be a case of one of the strains known to make the rounds this time of year.

While those strains can and do sometimes prove fatal among vulnerable segments of the population, vaccines are widely available. No vaccine has yet been developed for the new swine flu strain, which apparently got its start at an American-owned factory pig farm in Mexico.

World health officials have dubbed the new strain Influenza A H1N1. Since the population lacks protection through immunization, they say, it has the potential to reach pandemic proportions.

However, some context is helpful: The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that scientists studying H1N1 are coming to the consensus that the new hybrid may actually pose less threat than “run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks” passing with little notice every winter.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta says up to 36,000 Americans, mostly at one of the extreme ends of the age spectrum, die of the flu or its complications every year in the United States — despite the wide availability of free or low-cost vaccines.

By contrast, the World Health Organization says the new swine flu strain has been confirmed so far in 365 cases in 13 countries. It has claimed nine lives in Mexico and one in the U.S. — that of a toddler in Texas who had just arrived from Mexico.

Additional testing in the Willamina case is being conducted by the state Health Department, Forster said. He said he understood the child’s home had been placed under quarantine as a precaution.

Forster said health officials should be able to determine the strain involved in the local case by Monday morning. If it isn’t the new swine flu strain, classes will resume in the district, he said.

Rumors began to swirl through town early Friday morning. By 7 a.m., Forster said he had obtained enough information to feel it would be best to close schools for the day.

Students who ride the bus gathered in the gym at the middle school and in their classrooms at the elementary school and high school, and parents were contacted. Parents picked up some of the students and the rest were bused back home.
Then custodians set about disinfecting facilities at all three schools.

Friday night baseball and softball games with visiting league rival Valley Catholic of Beaverton were postponed. Rescheduling will be explored.

Three performances of the drama “Black Comedy,” one slated for Friday and two for Saturday, were canceled. So was an orientation session for eighth-graders about to make the transition to high school.

Elsewhere in the Yamhill Valley, school were all operating normally.

At tribal headquarters in Grand Ronde, all youth programs scheduled Friday were canceled and a tribal council session slated for Sunday was postponed. Grand Ronde tribal headquarters will remain closed Monday, according to spokesperson Siobhan Taylor, and the tribe is encouraging employees and residents to stay home this weekend.

The tribal health clinic will be open today. It will be closed Sunday, but anyone developing flu-like symptoms is invited to call the center either day at 503-879-2022 to schedule a screening. The clinic pharmacy will remain open both days.

“This is strictly a precautionary measure,” Tribal Executive Officer Chris Leno said of the closures and cancellations. “We cannot emphasize enough that staff should not overreact to these developments. We are just being extremely cautious to avoid this developing into a larger concern.”

With swine flu dominating the news, personnel in school districts across the valley were taking extra precautions.
McMinnville staff members redoubled efforts to sanitize surfaces, such as student desks, door handles and tables.

They reminded students to be diligent about good hygiene — covering mouths when coughing and washing hands frequently with soap. And they sent hygiene and health information home with students, as did officials in several other districts.

On the recommendation of the county health department, Superintendent Maryalice Russell said, any student returning from a trip to Mexico will be held out of school for several days as a precaution. So far, she said, no such students have been identified.

Linfield College has no indication of any cases, though it is also distributing hygiene information and reviewing contingency plans. The biggest flu story at Linfield came via the cancellation Friday by Yamhill County Public Health of an emergency preparedness exercise.

Part of a statewide Cascadia Peril earthquake drill, the local event was being coordinated by the county. By sheer coincidence, the staff planned to conduct a flu vaccine immunization drill.

An actual flu outbreak, threatening to turn into a pandemic, convinced officials the exercise could wait — particularly since many of those who were planning to participate were busy with the actual outbreak. Bates termed it “a difficult decision” necessitated by limited resources.

— Starla Pointer of the News-Register and The Associated Press contributed to this report.