Hundreds of schoolchildren in New York may be infected with the swine flu virus, the city’s Health Commissioner said last night, as experts acknowledged that the world was on track for a pandemic.
“It does seem scary when they put you in isolation, but it goes away,” Stephanie Maglaras, 14, who tested positive for the virus after catching it at her school in New York, told The Times. “It’s something to be afraid of, but you have to go on with your life.”
The virus linked to the deaths of an estimated 152 people in Mexico has surfaced in countries as far apart as New Zealand and Israel.
It appears to have jumped from America’s largest Roman Catholic secondary school, St Francis Prep, in the borough of Queens, to a nearby school for autistic children, the Robin Sue Ward school. At least one pupil there has siblings at St Francis Prep, which is less than a mile away. Robin Sue Ward, which has 400 pupils, was closed yesterday after dozens of autistic children became ill with suspected swine flu. Teachers’ union officials arrived with boxes of face masks.
Authorities in New York are also investigating reported cases at a third school, Ascension School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, after six children reported flu-like symptoms. Two people — a two-month-old baby from the Bronx and a woman in Brooklyn — were admitted to hospital in apparently unrelated cases. The baby’s condition is improving and the woman has been released. “So far, the swine flu here looks like the garden variety flu we see every year,” Michael Bloomberg, the New York Mayor, said. “All patients we know of are recovering, with the overwhelming majority having had only mild illness.”
The outbreak at St Francis Prep, which has 2,700 pupils, followed the return of a group of eight students from a spring holiday in Cancún, Mexico. Ms Maglaras, a pupil at the school who did not travel to Mexico, said that she started suffering symptoms on April 21 and went home. After staying at home for a day, she returned to school. “I thought I had a stomach virus,” she said. The publicity about the outbreak prompted her to get tested at a hospital, where swine flu was confirmed. “I am just getting back to my normal ways now,” she said. “Since Tuesday [last week] I have been out of it. I have not really been doing anything.”
Ms Maglaras has started a Facebook page called “Prep Students Tested Positive for Swine Flu” which last night had more than 100 members, mostly St Francis pupils but also including some parents. “At first I think they were hiding a lot from us, which is disappointing,” she said of school authorities. “But now everything is out in the open. I know that it has affected other schools too.”
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday that there were at least 64 confirmed cases of swine flu in five states — 45 in New York, 10 in California, six in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio. Richard Besser, the centre’s acting director, said that deaths in the country were likely. “As this moves forward, I fully expect that we will see deaths from this infection,” he said.
California declared a state of emergency as authorities said that they were investigating two deaths in Los Angeles for possible links to the virus. Three people have been hospitalised in California, and two in Texas. President Obama asked Congress to release $1.5 billion (£1 billion) to enhance both the US and global response to swine flu.
The European Union, the United States and Canada advised people to avoid all non-essential travel to Mexico, while companies adopted wider travel restrictions to countries where cases have been confirmed.
The moves came as the World Health Organisation (WHO) acknowledged that the spread of the virus between humans — a hallmark of pandemics — was a “very serious possibility”. The likelihood that swine flu is being transmitted among many people in two different countries increases the probability of the WHO declaring a phase 5 alert on its pandemic preparedness scale of 1 to 6.
Results are expected today from nine people in Scotland who came into contact with newlyweds who contracted the disease while on honeymoon in Mexico. The couple, Iain and Dawn Askham, are being treated in isolation at a hospital near Glasgow.
Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London and an adviser to the WHO and the British Government, said: “We are clearly on track for a pandemic in the coming months. We must expect some serious cases and some deaths outside Mexico.”
Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general, said that a pandemic was not yet inevitable but that all countries should prepare for the worst, especially poorer developing nations. He said that it was “critical” to identify travellers from Mexico who might be infected with swine flu.
Dr Fukuda said that the most recent laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu included two in Britain and three in New Zealand, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 114. Reports suggest that the rates are already higher, though, with most cases in Mexico still not confirmed officially.
Every household in Britain is to receive a leaflet about swine flu next week, it was announced last night. The Department of Health is understood to have placed an order for millions of facemasks from an American healthcare supplier in recent days. A spokesman said that he could not confirm that an order had been made but said that the Government was “in the market” for all necessary preparations.
The WHO said yesterday that it did not recommend travel restrictions because evidence suggested that at present they would not “substantially” help to slow the spread. Nonetheless, the Foreign Office has updated its advice, recommending no non-essential travel to Mexico. Australia Canada, France and Switzerland made similar announcements.
Several major tour operators grounded flights to Mexico and suspended trips to Mexican coastal resorts. Flights on Thomson Airways, involving those booked on packages with the tour operators Thomson and First Choice, were suspended up to and including May 8 and the company said that it would begin repatriating travellers.
Thomas Cook Airlines, which takes Thomas Cook and Airtours holidaymakers to Mexico, suspended flights for the next seven days. German and French tourism groups also suspended trips.
Around the world
— There have been 114 confirmed cases of swine flu: 26 in Mexico, 65 in the US, 13 in Canada, 3 in New Zealand, 2 in Britain, 2 in Spain, 2 in Israel and 1 in Costa Rica. Cases are suspected in several other countries
— Cuba suspended flights to and from Mexico yesterday, the first country to do so Countries including China, Russia, Lebanon and Ecuador have halted pork imports from Mexico and parts of the US
— Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, said that tourists had little to fear from swine flu, because it will only affect people in “slums” in Asia or Mexico
— President Obama asked Congress for an additional $1.5 billion to tackle the outbreak
— The remainder of the Concacaf under17 football championship in Tijuana, Mexico, was cancelled
— Hog futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange fell by the 3-cent daily trading limit amid persistent fears that the spread of swine flu will dent demand
— EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said that the flu strain should be renamed “novel flu” as the current name was needlessly damaging to the pork industry
— The actor Hugh Jackman cancelled a scheduled appearance in Mexico City to promote X-Men Origins: Wolverine
— Arsenal’s Mexican forward, Carlos Vela, was told to stay away from training. The 20-year-old has not been in Mexico recently but had been visited by friends from home last week and has had tests as a precaution. He has now received the all-clear
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