Child dies of flu symptoms, more schools to close in New York

May 19, 2009, 15:12 GMT

New York - Health authorities were investigating on Tuesday whether a 16-month-old boy has died from the (A)H1N1 virus as New York scrambled to deal with the fast-spreading swine flu.

The boy died late Monday after he was taken to the Elmhurst Hospital in the Queens borough with influenza-type symptoms. Local news reports said his 3-year-old sister and 1-year-old cousin also have flu-like symptoms.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday it was not determined that the boy's death was related to the H1N1 virus.

'We will do what we can,' Bloomberg said in a daily update of the swine flu situation in the city. 'Most likely a few more schools will be closed.'

'It depends on the size of the school and the severity of the flu,' an embattled Bloomberg said. 'It's not a numeric thing, it's a subjective thing where professionals make recommendations based on their judgement at the time.'

On Sunday, Mitchell Wiener, a vice principal of a school in Queens, died of confirmed swine flu, becoming the first to die in New York, which has the largest cluster of swine flu cases in the United States.

The US now has more than 5,000 confirmed cases of the world total of more than 8,800 cases.