By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

GOLD Coast, Australia — After being quarantined for two days for treatment for Influenzavirus B, swimmer N’Nyhn Fernander has been cleared medically. Unfortunately, his confinement in the Games Village kept him from competing in his final two swims at the XXI Commonwealth Games.

After competing in the heat of the men’s 50m butterfly where he was 28th overall in 25.39 seconds, Fernander had to skip both the men’s 100m and 200m freestyle as he was confined to the Games Village.

“He had contracted Influenzavirus B, which is just the flu virus and had the chills, a fever, the cough and was feeling extremely weak with a sore throat,” said Dr Rickey Davis, the head of Team Bahamas’ medical staff.

“We went to the polyclinic here so that I could examine and at the same time, I asked one of the doctors here at the polyclinic to also check him out. His throat was red and swollen, so at first we thought it was tonsillitis.

“When we did a swab, it came back positive for Influenzavirus B and over here in Australia, they are very adamant about quarantining persons in an environment that is isolated, so no one else can catch whatever the symptom the person might have.”

While being quarantined for the 48 hours, Davis said Fernander was given antiviral medication for the sore throat. As a precautionary measure, Davis said about 15 members of Team Bahamas who were checked out because of their contact with Fernander.

However, Davis said there were no other cases of Influenzavirus B.

After the 48-hour period, Davis said Fernander was cleared and was moving around in the village. Unfortunately, the a 19-year-old freshman at Keiser University was not cleared in time to compete again.

“He’s fine,” Davis said. “He’s having a great time, but we had to take in consideration the health and well being of the athlete first and so we did all that we could to ensure that he was healthy and nobody else was affected.”

Fernander and the rest of the four-member swim team are done. They completed competition on Tuesday with Joanna Evans falling one spot shy of getting on the podium in the final of the women’s 400m freestyle.

Two members of the team, Izaak Bastian and Lilly Higgs, along with coach Andy Loveitt, were treated for the flu like symptoms when they arrived here directly from the Carifta Swimming Championships in Kingston, Jamaica.

As for the rest of the team, Davis said except from some minor problems of pain in their legs of some of the athletes, they haven’t had any other problems to deal with. He noted that once an incident was brought to his attention, he checked the athletes out thoroughly.

In the case of sprinter Shavez Hart, who withdrew from the first round heats of the men’s 200m after he failed to get out of the first round of the men’s 100m, Davis said Hart told him that he was having some shocking pain in his leg.

“I didn’t want to be bias, so I took him to the poly clinic where a sports medical doctor and myself was able to evaluate him and there wasn’t any significant findings other than a little small irritation.

“By the time we was finished, it was too late for him to get to the track to run,” Davis said. “He only had about a half hour to get from the poly clinic to the stadium. It took hours for us to deal with him.

“He just need some physio-therapy work done on him, nothing major. He said he was having pain and numbness when he pushed forward, so we just wanted to be sure that he didn’t have any major problems.”

Davis he and physio-therapists Cottrice Robinson and Cordero Bonamy have been treating the athletes on a case by case basis as they made their medical requests known.