PARIS — A U.S. official in Normandy to prepare President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit has been diagnosed with swine flu and is being treated in a hospital, French authorities said today.
Eleven other members of the U.S. delegation were placed in isolation for 24 hours in their hotel rooms and given medical treatment, said an official at the Calvados region administrative headquarters. The official was not authorized to be identified publicly.
The 54-year-old American woman was hospitalized in the city of Caen, and will remain for about a week, the official said.
The hotel where the delegation was staying, in the seaside town of Port-en-Bessin, is not far from the beaches where Allied forces landed June 6, 1944, in the D-Day invasion. Obama is coming to the area for the 65th anniversary of the invasion next week.
The swine flu incident comes as veterans, visitors and French, British, U.S. and other officials are streaming into the area for the anniversary.
The U.S. Embassy said in a statement “the French authorities are taking the appropriate action” in the Normandy swine flu case.
The World Health Organization reported today that its global tally rose to 15,510 swine flu cases in 53 countries, including 99 deaths, most of them in Mexico.
In the United States, officials reported 8,975 confirmed cases today and 15 deaths. France has 20 confirmed cases.
In April, a U.S. security aide helping with arrangements during Obama’s trip to Mexico became sick with flu-like symptoms and three members of his family later contracted probable swine flu.
The employee, who was not identified, was an aide to Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Meanwhile, two Greek students caught swine flu in Scotland last week, proof that the virus is circulating more widely than European authorities admit.
The two men, students in Edinburgh, were diagnosed with swine flu when they returned to Greece last week. Neither reported any known contact with a confirmed swine flu case or any history of travel beyond Scotland in the last 15 days.
“This is definitely an indicator the virus is spreading in the community,” said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St. Bart’s and Royal London Hospital. “Most of the time, this virus is like an iceberg. You can only see the tip but there is a big iceberg below the surface.”
The two students went to several parties last week and fell ill about the same time, meaning they probably did not infect each other. Their cases were described in an article published online Thursday in Eurosurveillance, a publication of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
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