49 Confirmed Cases of Swine Flu in New York City

Updated, 2:45 p.m. | New York City now has 49 confirmed cases of swine flu, up from 44 on Tuesday. All 49 cases are associated either with the outbreak in St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens, or with travel to Mexico or contact with people there, the authorities announced on Wednesday afternoon.

In addition, there are two new “probable cases” of swine flu in the city, the New York City health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, announced.

The five newly confirmed cases involve three students at St. Francis, a 19-month-old child in the Bronx who has been hospitalized, and a young woman in Brooklyn who was briefly hospitalized and has now been discharged. (Earlier today, Gov. David A. Paterson said state health authorities had confirmed three cases of the flu in Orange, Suffolk and Cortland counties.)

“Despite hundreds and hundreds of cases likely” at St. Francis, none of the cases has turned into severe influenza, Dr. Frieden said. The virus is “acting the same way as seasonal flu acts,” he said. And over the past week, some cases of suspected swine flu turned out to be “garden-variety seasonal flu,” he said.

The city continues to investigate a cluster of swine flu cases at Public School 177, also in Fresh Meadows.

Dr. Frieden noted that “rumors” of swine flu are widespread, and he urged people who are not sick to stay away from hospitals.

“What we’ve found, mostly, is that those are rumors,” he said. “What we’ve seen, mostly, in terms of people coming into emergency departments, is people who are worried, but not sick.”

He added: “Only time will tell how many more cases of swine flu we have in New York City.”

Only state and local health authorities can declare probable cases of swine flu, and for now, only the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can declare confirmed cases of swine flu, Dr. Frieden said. State and city authorities plan to obtain reagents from federal authorities that would allow them

All of the New York City confirmed flu cases — including a 19-month-old baby, a Brooklyn woman and the St. Francis students — involve people who are recovering, Dr. Frieden said.

Dr. Frieden confirmed that two Catholic grammar schools in Brooklyn have been closed because of suspicion of swine flu, as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn announced earlier on Wednesday. He emphasized that those cases were not confirmed.

A deputy schools chancellor, Kathleen Grimm, said that citywide school attendance has not been substantially affected by the flu scare. Attendance is over 88 percent — as normal — with 73 percent of data in, she said.

Unlike the situation at St. Francis — where 75 students fell ill on Thursday, and another 150 on Friday — no other schools have reported anything seeming like a large outbreak of flu symptoms, Dr. Frieden said during a question-and-answer session with reporters.

Test results are due later Wednesday for a suspected outbreak at P.S. 177, and in addition, the city is still processing a survey administered to some 2,000 students and staff at St. Francis Prep, Dr. Frieden said.