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Health Director: More Time Needed To Confirm Peoria Student's Cause Of Death

Arizona health director Will Humble says it may be a few more days before tests can confirm what caused the death of a Peoria first grade student.

Humble says while there are concerns 6-year-old Luke Smith may have died from Enterovirus D-68, there is as yet no evidence of it.  And, he says they’ve seen other suspected cases come back negative,

“We sent about a dozen samples that we suspected may be Enterovirus, to the laboratory at CDC over the last couple weeks and all of those have come back negative,” Humble said.

Humble says Arizona remains one of the few states with no confirmed cases of Enterovirus but he suspects there will be one in the near future, because with cases already in more than 40 states, it’s likely the disease is in the state, even though it has not been detected yet.

Dennis Lambert was a morning host at KJZZ.