Florida Hospital officials: No confirmed cases of swine flu in Central Florida

Officials at Florida Hospital said there are no confirmed cases of swine flu in Central Florida, but state health officials said they have sent some flu-like cases to CDC for testing.

A report on WFTV.com showed a chief medical officer at Florida Hospital confirmed a case of swine flu in a Mexican tourist at Walt Disney World through an e-mail sent to the news agency.

"In this case, if it was implied that it was swine flu, that was a misstatement," Dr. Scott Brady, vice president of Florida Hospital, said at a 12:30 p.m. news conference.

"We have not had any confirmations from the CDC," Brady said. "We've had two or three cases of positive influenza...we should know about these in 48 hours."

One culture was sent to the CDC Monday night from a tourist at one of the Walt Disney World theme parks, Brady said. He said the tourist met the criteria of being in Mexico or having had contact with someone from Mexico.

Brady said state health officials are looking into the Mexico connection.

So far, Florida Hospital CentraCare clinics have sent three swabs to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Jacksonville. It will take about 48 hours to determine if the sub-type of influenza is the swine flu. State health officials have sent some local influenza cases to state labs.

"We have released one suspect case that was sent to a state lab for testing and we're waiting to see what that is," Orange County Health Department spokesman Dain Weister said. "There may be more than one [case]. Any influenza-like cases are being sent and being looked at."

Weister said they have not received any confirmation from CDC about swine flu in Central Florida.

Officials at Walt Disney World would not comment and deferred all calls regarding the possible swine flu case to the health officials.

According to a Monday afternoon update posted by the CDC, there were no confirmed human cases of the swine flu infection in Florida. It takes the CDC about 48 hours to test for swine flu.

In Mexico, authorities on Monday said 149 people have died of influenza, and at least 1,995 cases have been reported at hospitals. So far, however, only 26 of the deaths and 172 of the cases in Mexico have been confirmed to be swine flu.

There were 40 cases nationwide, most of which were in New York City.

Check back for updates.

Amy L. Edwards, Sarah Lundy, Fernando Quintero and Jason Garcia contributed to this report.