Florida now has five confirmed swine flu cases; two in Lee , one in Broward, one in Orange County , and one in Pinellas.

The second Lee County confirmation is a 7 year old boy who attends Spring Creek Elementary School. The Pinellas County confirmed case is 24 year old man

Alachua, Lee, Indian River, Okeechobee, and Clay have one probable case each. Palm Beach has two probable cases and Miami Dade has three. Hillsborough County has five probable cases.

A public health emergency was declared by the State Surgeon General.

A toll free information line has been established to address an increasing number of calls from the public requesting Swine Flu information. The number is 1-800-342-3557 and it is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Samples are being received by Florida Department of Health Laboratories for analysis from physicians and hospitals across the state.

The Department of Health continues enhanced surveillance and outreach to physicians, hospitals and other health care professionals. The surveillance system, consisting of sentinel physicians reporting influenza activity, DOH laboratories receiving specimens from physicians and hospitals and our ability to monitor emergency room cases and over- the-counter drug sales is fully operational. We have activated our response plan and are ready to respond to any cases of swine flu if it should occur.

Department of Health continues its enhanced surveillance with a network of Sentinel Physician Providers. These providers send selected samples of laboratory specimens to state laboratories for testing if they have patients with influenza like illness (ILI). These physicians also continue to report weekly ILI cases to the Department of Health.

Anti-virals have been pre-positioned to areas of potential need. The agency has more than half a million individual courses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 226 confirmed cases of novel influenza in the United States, with one death in a 23-month old.

The World Health Organization (WHO) alert level remains at Phase 5. The declaration of a Phase 5 is a strong signal that the pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.

Participation in Centers for Disease Control and other national conference calls will continue.