New York sends flu samples from school to CDC: report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Students at a New York City school have tested positive for Type A influenza, CNN reported on Saturday, but more tests are needed to see if they have the unusual new flu virus involved in an outbreak in Mexico, it said.
The television network, quoting local health officials, said the New York City health department was sending samples from nine students who had flu-like symptoms to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for more detailed testing.
About 100 students at a school in the New York City borough of Queens became sick last week, prompting the tests, according to local media reports.
A quick throat swab test can tell if a person has influenza but further testing is usually required to determine the strain.
CDC officials said earlier on Saturday they were waiting for local health officials to ask for help and that they were not involved in the New York investigation. They noted that outbreaks of respiratory illness are common and do not necessarily mean that people have flu.
Public health officials in the United States, Canada and Mexico are on heightened alert to flu outbreaks because of a new influenza strain in the A/H1N1 family suspected of killing as many as 68 people in Mexico and infecting more than 1,000 more, including eight in the United States.
World Health Organization experts are set to declare the outbreak is a "public health event of international concern" and are assessing the risks the outbreak will turn into a pandemic.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton)
