RENO " Nine new cases of swine flu were confirmed Thursday, including eight more students at a Sparks middle school that has been closed through Memorial Day to help prevent the illness from spreading.
The eight additional cases involving students at the middle school and a ninth child younger than school age push Washoe County's total to 19 and Nevada's state total to 47, health officials said.
Crews were using a disinfectant solution to wash down all surfaces at Mendive Middle School where 13 students have been sickened by the H1N1 virus. It's the only school in Nevada to have been closed because of the flu.
One student had been hospitalized but was discharged Thursday, Washoe County District Health Department spokeswoman Judy Davis said.
Davis had no immediate information on the conditions of the students whose cases were confirmed Thursday.
Rose Kibala, who attends Mendive, said the student who was hospitalized was a friend who she had been communicating with via text messages.
"She's well enough to text. They caught it in the early stages," Kibala told KOLO-TV.
The suburban Sparks school with more than 900 seventh- and eight-graders on the northeast edge of town was closed Wednesday night after five cases were confirmed there. It is scheduled to reopen Tuesday.
Martha Framsted, spokeswoman for the Nevada State Health Division, said that besides the 19 confirmed cases in Washoe County, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has confirmed 25 cases in Clark County, two in Carson City and one in Lyon County. Two more cases are considered "probable" swine flu.
"What the CDC has said all along, when you look you find," Framsted said.
Swine flu has sickened more than 11,000 people in 41 countries and killed 85, according to the World Health Organization, whose figures often trail those of individual countries. Mexico has reported 75 deaths, the U.S. 10, and one in both Canada and Costa Rica.
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Associated Press writer Sandra Chereb contributed to this report.