Reply #19: Today's release

[Snazzy]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Release # 016-09
Sunday, April 26, 2009


Testing Confirms Swine Influenza at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens

No citywide increase in illness and no other cases or clusters identified in NYC so far


April 26, 2009 – Tests conducted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have confirmed cases of human swine flu among students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens. The school is suspending classes on Monday. The affected students have experienced only mild symptoms and many are already improving, but a similar virus has recently caused deaths in Mexico.

All of the U.S. patients have recovered fully. The Health Department’s surveillance system has not shown a citywide increase in flu-like illness. An investigation of a cluster of children with illness in a Bronx daycare facility has so far not identified any confirmed or probable cases.

The Queens investigation began last week, when more than 100 students at the St. Francis School developed flu-like symptoms, including fever and sore throat. The Health Department’s Public Health Laboratory tested nine nose and throat swabs. Eight of them tested positive for Influenza A but did match any of the known human variants of that virus (the H1 and H3 human subtypes) by available testing methods. On Saturday, the Health Department deemed them “probable” cases of human swine influenza and sent the samples to CDC in Atlanta for confirmatory testing. Those tests confirmed the presence of swine influenza viruses.

...

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr2009/pr016-09.shtml

(just want to keep this together--I'm sure it's posted elsewhere)