NEW YORK — An assistant principal who was sick for several days with swine flu on Sunday became the city’s first death linked to the virus.
Mitchell Wiener, who had worked at an intermediate school in Queens, died Sunday evening, Flushing Hospital Medical Center spokesman Andrew Rubin said. Wiener, 55, had been sick for nearly a week before his school was closed Thursday. He had been hospitalized and on a ventilator.
The 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 began falling ill after the return of several students from Mexico vacations.
Five more city schools will close today, bringing the total to 11. Besides Wiener, no one else in New York City has become seriously ill from the virus.
Meanwhile, confirmed swine-flu cases in Japan surged over the weekend to 121, health officials said today. The epidemic is expected to dominate the World Health Organization’s annual meeting, which begins today in Geneva.
