Swine flu has been officially confirmed in Portage County.

The Portage County Health Board confirmed the case yesterday. The case involves a 39-year-old resident of the county who became sick after returning from an area with confirmed cases of the virus.

While the person has no connection to the university, Pete Goldsmith, vice president for enrollment management and student affairs, said students need to follow necessary procedures to prevent contracting the virus.

Last week in an e-mail sent to faculty, Senior Associate Provost Timothy Chandler asked faculty to think about alternative and remote delivery of final exams and projects in the event classes are suspended. Goldsmith said no actions have been taken to suspend classes.

“At that point, we didn’t know how far or how fast the swine flu would spread and what its impact would be,” Goldsmith said. “But as the week has gone on, it appears that what we have is a fairly mild strain of the swine flu that is not spreading quite as rapidly as perhaps some folks predicted.”

– Nick Walton