New York -A school assistant principal who was sick for several days with swine flu became the nation's sixth death linked to the H1N1 virus on Sunday, and the city's first.
Earlier Sunday, New York City officials decided to close five more schools today for up to five days because of concern about swine flu, bringing the total number of shuttered schools to 11. Each had students with flu-like illnesses last week.
The assistant principal, Mitchell Wiener, worked at a middle school in Queens and had been sick for nearly a week before his school was closed Thursday, officials said. Flushing Medical Center spokesman Andrew Rubin said that Wiener had been on a ventilator and that complications besides the virus probably played a part in his death.
As of Sunday afternoon, health officials had reported five other deaths in the United States: three in Texas, one in Washington state and one in Arizona.
People with underlying health issues seem most susceptible to the virus. Most of those sickened from the H1N1 virus have complained of mild, flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, sore throat, aches and fatigue.
New York City's first outbreak of swine flu occurred three weeks ago, when about 700 students and 300 other people associated with a Catholic high school in Queens began falling ill after several students returned from vacations in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak. The school was closed.
That school, St. Francis Preparatory, has been cleaned and reopened, and many New Yorkers had assumed before the latest flurry of school closings that the danger of swine flu was subsiding.
Health officials urged people with underlying health conditions to see their doctors if they believe they may have been exposed to swine flu.
That includes people with diabetes, people whose immune systems are compromised because of certain cancer medications, pregnant women, elderly people and infants.
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