A flu outbreak in Tooele County is indeed H1N1, and the number of people contracting the virus is increasing at a rapid rate, according to Tooele County Health Department officials.

Swab samples taken earlier this week of five students — from a high school and an elementary school — in Tooele County who had symptoms that could be H1N1 were sent to the state health department to be tested. All five came back positive for H1N1, according to Tooele County Health Department Director Myron Bateman.

“From a statewide and local perspective, within the last sampling period, which is the last week, the state average for influenza-like illness jumped from 3 percent of those tests being conducted to 6.6 percent — which in that span of time is a remarkable increase,” said Bucky Whitehouse, public information officer with the Tooele County Health Department. “So what we’ve learned from doing cluster samples is consistent with what the state learned, which is H1N1 is in the community and we’re seeing a larger rate of illness due to it.”

Bateman added the samples statewide have shown the sampling to be almost 100 percent H1N1.

Whitehouse said the hospital is seeing an increased number of cases at the emergency room, as are other health care providers in the area.

He added he’s heard from local businesses that the flu has been an issue.

“It’s affecting them both with employees being sick, but even bigger than that it’s the employees having to stay home to take care of children who are sick,” he said.

The health department is currently out of H1N1 vaccine after holding a clinic yesterday where it gave out about 800 doses of the vaccine. The department has already placed an order for next week’s allocation of vaccine.

“We prioritized the groups and we tried to let people know immediately if they qualified, so in our afternoon group from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. we did people under the age of 18 that had chronic health problems,” Bateman said. “We probably turned away at least 400 people. There were probably another 200 people in the line we turned away before they even got to the door.”

So far, statewide there have been 274 influenza-like hospitalizations, with 147 of those being within the last week.

“From the health standpoint looking at this, it was a very rapid jump in the span of a week to go that high,” Whitehouse said.

In the past week there have been two deaths related to H1N1 in Davis County, two in Salt Lake County, and one in the Tri-County Health Department that serves Daggett, Duchesne and Uintah counties. Tooele County has not seen any deaths related to H1N1.

Whitehouse said pandemics usually have three distinct waves. He said the state considered the first wave took place this past February, March and April. Now the second wave has arrived. Whitehouse added waves typically last six to eight weeks with a total duration of 12 to 18 months.

“So if this one holds true to what we’ve seen in past pandemics, there will be a third wave at some point in the future,” he said, adding it’s believed that will occur in February, March and April.

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com