Health Officials Investigate Illness at Queens Private School

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/nyregion/25sick.html?ref=nyregion

Health Officials Investigate Illness at Queens Private School

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

Published: April 24, 2009

The New York City health department dispatched a team of investigators to a

private school in Queens on Friday after dozens of students complained of

symptoms that officials believed were consistent with a strain of swine flu that

has swept Mexico City.

The agency said about 75 students at St. Francis Preparatory School had

complained Thursday of nausea, fever, dizziness and aches and pains. Several of

the students were said to have recently traveled to Mexico, where as many as 61

people have died and possibly hundreds more have been infected in an outbreak of

swine flu in recent weeks.

To control the epidemic, Mexican officials have shut museums and closed schools

in and around the capital.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that eight

cases have been diagnosed in the United States, six in California and two in

Texas.

In New York City, health officials said that doctors and investigators were sent

to St. Francis Preparatory as a precautionary measure, and that tests were being

conducted in an effort to rule out swine flu as the cause of the students'

symptoms.

" The health department will continue to work closely with students, parents and

school officials to monitor the situation, " the agency said in a statement.