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NEW YORK (AFP) – New York, location of the biggest swine flu outbreak beyond Mexico, was monitoring potentially hundreds of cases Wednesday, but with no immediate sign that the disease was having a serious effect.
Two schools in the Queens neighborhood remained closed and a third was open, but under close watch, as US officials declared a 23-month-old child in Texas the country's first swine flu fatality.
The New York City Health Department declined to give an update on the condition of two people hospitalized with swine flu -- an infant and a woman -- but said a briefing would take place at 1800 GMT.
In New York state, 45 people have been confirmed with contracting swine flu, which originally spread from Mexico.
City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said Tuesday that "many hundreds" of school children were believed to be sick but that none had developed dangerous symptoms and were all getting better.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg also played down the situation, saying it resembled the "garden variety" flu, which in New York kills as many as 2,000 people a year.
The outbreak epicenter was at Saint Francis Preparatory School, but spread to the nearby Public School 177. Both were closed Wednesday.
The Roman Catholic-run Ascension School in Manhattan remained open while tests were run on 12 students with fever.
"We don't have any cases of swine flu confirmed and we are open today," a spokeswoman for the school said.
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