Students Fall Ill in New York, and Swine Flu Is Likely Cause

Students Fall Ill in New York, and Swine Flu Is Likely Cause.Tests show that eight students at a Queens high school are likely to have contracted the human swine flu virus that has struck Mexico and a small number of other people in the United States, health officials in New York City said yesterday.

The students were among about 100 at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows who became sick in the last few days, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City’s health commissioner.

“All the cases were mild, no child was hospitalized, no child was seriously ill,” Dr. Frieden said.

Health officials reached their preliminary conclusion after conducting viral tests on nose or throat swabs from the eight students, which allowed them to eliminate other strains of flu. Officials were also suspicious since some St. Francis students recently had been to Mexico, where the outbreak is believed to have started.

The president in Mexico assumed emergency powers to deal with the crisis, which has killed at least 81 people and infected about 1,300 others. All public gatherings have been banned, including more than 500 concerts and sporting events and the popular bicycle rides on closed boulevards.

Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said the events in Mexico “constitute a public health emergency of international concern.”

The W.H.O. convened an emergency meeting of experts on Saturday, but the panel adjourned without raising the global pandemic alert level, saying it wanted more information. Some experts expressed surprise that no action was taken since the Mexico outbreak seems to meet the definition of a Level 4 alert — sustained human-to-human transmission of a new virus. The alert has been at Level 3 for years because of small clusters of human cases of avian flu.

In the United States, so far, at least 11 swine flu cases have been confirmed. Seven were confirmed in San Diego and Imperial Counties in California and two in Kansas. In Texas, two 16-year-old students at Byron Steele High School in Cibolo, near San Antonio, were confirmed to have swine flu, and one of their classmates was suspected to have the virus. There have been no deaths, and officials said most of the 11 seemed to be recovering.

Officials said they expect to find many more cases as they begin testing for them.

In New York, the samples from the Queens students have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the only lab in the country that can positively confirm the new swine flu strain — which has been identified as H1N1. Results were expected on Sunday, officials said.

Fearing a panic that might tax local health facilities, Dr. Frieden urged New Yorkers not to go to a hospital if they had typical mild cold or flu symptoms. If they are seriously ill, especially with lung problems, they should seek medical attention promptly, he said, because antiflu drugs work best if taken in the first 48 hours.

Because of fears of the H5N1 avian flu, both New York City and the United States have had detailed pandemic emergency plans in place since 2005, as well as stockpiles of emergency supplies and flu drugs (the plan can be read at www.pandemicflu.gov).

Dr. Frieden said that for such an emergency, the city had extra hospital ventilators, huge reserves of masks and gloves and “millions of doses of Tamiflu,” an antiflu drug that thus far appears to work against the new swine strain.

The eight Queens students were positive for an A-strain flu virus but negative for all previously known A-strains. That result, called “A-untypeable,” led officials to suspect it was the new swine flu.

Dr. Frieden said the city was also testing samples from students from a day care center in the Bronx. Health officials would not identify it.

Thomas Skinner, a spokesman for the C.D.C., said the agency would send a team to New York, as it has to California, Texas and Mexico, if requested.

New York has one of the most sophisticated health departments in the world, but the C.D.C. can assist by releasing supplies from the National Strategic Stockpile. Tamiflu, masks, gloves, purifying gel, ventilators and other goods useful in a flu crisis are kept in warehouses around the country and can be moved out in a matter of hours, Mr. Skinner said.

In Texas, Byron Steele High School was closed and all its extracurricular activities were canceled “to reduce the risk to students, staff and the community,” said Dr. Sandra Guerra, a regional director for the state health department. She urged students not to hang out together anyway as “that would defeat the purpose.”

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas asked the C.D.C. to send 37,430 doses of Tamiflu.

According to one expert involved in telephone discussions about flu preparedness on Saturday, there was debate among officials about whether to move some of the stockpile closer to Texas and California. Presumably, that will be made moot by indications that a mild form of the flu may have already spread elsewhere in the nation.

The C.D.C. did not raise the alert level in the United States, which is officially at zero because there have been no human cases of H5N1 avian flu here as there have been in Asia and Egypt.

C.D.C. scientists are working on a “seed strain” for a vaccine matched to the new swine flu, but warned that it would take months before enough doses for all Americans are ready.

They are also creating test kits for 140 American labs and dozens of international ones to allow them to test for the new flu.

In each year’s flu season, most deaths are in infants and the aged, but none of the first ones in Mexico were in people over 60 or under 3 years old, a W.H.O. spokeswoman said. When a new virus emerges, deaths may occur in healthy adults who mount the strongest immune reactions. Their own defenses — inflammation and leaking fluid in lung cells — can essentially drown them from inside.

The federal pandemic plan includes putting emergency rooms and first-responders on alert, making sure they have seasonal flu shots and putting them first in line for any early batches of a swine flu vaccine.

The 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic came in waves — a summertime one was mild, then a severe one hit the following winter.

However, as experts note, in 1918 there was no Tamiflu, no antibiotics to fight pneumonia, and no powered ventilators.

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