Swine flu-related cases found in Morningside Heights

The swine flu that first hit New York City with a few isolated cases in Queens has now spread to Morningside Heights.

Teachers College sent a message to affiliates reporting that a student “was diagnosed this past Sunday with Type A Influenza, which has been linked to swine flu. We have been and will continue to be in touch with the student.”

The student responded to the school’s e-mail advisory about the illness late Monday afternoon, after having been on campus Thursday through Saturday. The email stated that he was in Zankel Hall, the first floor of the library, and that he used computer labs on the third floor of Macy Hall and on the second floor of Horace Mann Hall. TC promptly reported the case to the city’s Department of Health.

The school said it did not sanitize the areas where the infected student had been prior to his diagnosis. “As we were notified 2 days after the student was on campus, sanitizing the facilities would have extremely low health utility and would be unnecessarily disruptive to our students during this busy time of the year,” TC’s message explained.

Six neighborhood students with fevers are also being tested for the flu. The students attend the Ascension School at 220 West 108th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave., according to the New York Times.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Health Department released a statement that “four days of close monitoring has yet to show any increase in reports of severe respiratory illness in New York City.”

The statement added, “The Health Department is closely monitoring health trends in New York City for evidence of a wider outbreak. Agency officials are also speaking regularly with all hospitals in New York City, and the agency’s syndromic surveillance system is monitoring numerous indicators, such as hospital admissions and emergency department visits, for increases flu-like illness. Moderate increases were observed over the weekend, but their significance is unknown.”

The swine flu is a respiratory infection that is typically rare in humans. Most cases involve direct human interaction with pigs, according to the city’s Health Department. When the illness afflicts people, symptoms can often be mistaken as coming from seasonal allergies. People with the flu have experienced and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue, and in some cases, diarrhea and vomiting.

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