Seven students at Joseph Foran High School in Milford have tested positive for the swine flu, and there could be as many as 20 more cases.
Dr. Dennis McBride, the city's health director said it is likely that number will rise because 13 students who had flu-like symptoms were not tested.
The district went to a half-day schedule when the outbreak began last week, with students being dismissed at noon. No lunch is served.
“In the face of an outbreak of influenza-like-illness (ILI) at Foran High School, I elected not to close the school but to work with Dr. Harvey Polansky, Superintendent of Schools, to devise a plan to reduce the spread of ILI and yet continue essential education work. If we had been presented with an extremely virulent virus, such as a virus that caused the 1918 Influenza pandemic, I would have closed the school. We were not in that situation,” McBride said in a notice posted on the school district’s Web site Monday.
McBride said he would recommend that Foran remain on a half-day schedule through the remainder of the school year, which ends on June 25.
