USA: 2nd Death in New York City Linked to Swine Flu

. NEW YORK, NY / The New York Times / May 24, 2009 By Anemona Hartocollis A second New York City resident, a woman from Queens in her 50s, has died from swine flu, the city’s health department said on Sunday. The woman had an underlying health condition that made her more at risk from the disease, said Jessica Scaperotti, a health department spokeswoman. Mitchell Wiener, an assistant principal at a Queens middle school, who died on May 17, became the first person in New York State to die of the flu strain that has swept across much of the world since it was first identified in April. Ms. Scaperotti declined to reveal any further details of the latest death, including the hospital where the woman had been treated. But she said that the woman died sometime over the past two days and that testing had confirmed that the woman had the H1N1 virus. She would be the 11th confirmed death caused by swine flu in the United States. The number of people hospitalized with swine flu since the beginning of the outbreak in New York City at the end of April had risen to 94 on Sunday from 68 Saturday and 57 on Friday, health department officials said, suggesting that the rate of infection and hospitalization might be increasing. Ms. Scaperotti could not say how many of those patients were now hospitalized or how many were in critical condition. On Friday, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center said it had a patient in critical condition with swine flu at its location in Morningside Heights. Doctors there were optimistic that the patient’s condition was improving. “As we see more cases in the community we are going to see more severe illness and possibly death,” Ms. Scaperotti said. “If you’re sick right now with flu, you probably have H1N1.” By Friday, 12,022 cases of swine flu, including 86 deaths, had been reported to the World Health Organization from 43 countries. More than half of the cases were from the United States; of the deaths, 75 were reported by Mexico. On Sunday, health officials in New York continued to stress that anyone with underlying health conditions — like diabetes, asthma, emphysema or a compromised immune system — who is exposed to flu should seek medical attention. The flu’s New York City history began in Queens at St. Francis Preparatory School, where 69 cases were reported, and it has caused dozens of city schools to close. Twenty of the schools — all but four in Queens — are to reopen on Tuesday, including Intermediate School 238 in Queens, where Mr. Wiener, 55, was the assistant principal. Seventeen public schools and programs will still be closed, although they are all slated to reopen by Thursday. Ms. Scaperotti said the latest school to announce it was closing because of swine flu, a yeshiva in Brooklyn, had made the decision on its own, without seeking a recommendation from the health department. She said that was the prerogative of private schools. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company