Sedgwick County officials said Friday that a St. Thomas Aquinas school student has the county's first suspected case of swine flu.
The county Health Department is working with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment on the case, a county spokeswoman said in a news release.
A specimen taken from the student must be tested by the state and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before being declared swine flu.
Also Friday, state officials said a case of swine flu is suspected in a patient from Johnson County who is hospitalized in the Kansas City area. Kansas has two confirmed swine flu cases, both in Dickinson County.
Federal officials announced Friday that Missouri has one confirmed case of swine flu and three probable cases.
In Wichita, parents of St. Thomas Aquinas students have been sent a letter advising them of the child's illness.
The student was out of school for several days before developing symptoms, has not returned to school and will stay away for at least seven days, said Bob Voboril, superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Wichita.
He said the family's physician had determined that the student had influenza A, of which swine flu is a strain.
Voboril said the student had been visiting out of state -- he wouldn't say where -- when symptoms appeared. The student's father "had some symptoms before the student did," Voboril said. The student's sibling and mother haven't had symptoms.
"We will continue to have school at St. Thomas next week," Voboril said. "I really want to commend the mother of this student for just doing everything we have been asking our parents to do."
State health officials wouldn't release information on the Johnson County patient, such as gender or whether the person had visited Mexico.
Jason Eberhart-Phillips, state health officer and director of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's Division of Health, said testing has been inconclusive, and definitive results aren't expected for a couple of days.
"The patient who is hospitalized has been appropriately isolated and is being managed correctly and is undergoing treatment," he said.
CDC officials said Friday that Missouri's first confirmed case is a 30-year-old woman from in the Kansas City area who recently returned from Mexico.
The woman has received anti-viral medicine, has not needed hospital treatment and is recovering well, the state Department of Health and Senior Services said in a written statement.
Swine flu is also suspected in a 19-year-old Kansas City man who was hospitalized in the Omaha area after traveling to Nebraska for treatment of another health condition.
Missouri's two newest probable cases are members of a central Missouri family who recently visited Mexico, the state Department of Health and Senior Services said. No additional information about the family was released.
Even with the additional suspected cases in Kansas, health officials and doctors emphasize that there is no reason to think every cold is swine flu and no reason to be tested unless certain symptoms are present.
Influenza -- the seasonal version or the new H1N1 swine flu virus -- has distinct symptoms that include sudden onset, a high temperature (102 or higher), body aches and respiratory symptoms.
Kansans also are being hit by allergies, late-season colds and "stomach flu," all of which cause much milder symptoms, physicians say.
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