FOX41.com Louisville News Kentucky Indiana News Weather SportsNearly half of students absent from Meyzeek

Nearly half of students absent from Meyzeek

-- by Julie Tam, FOX 41 News

Swine flu is still having drastic effects on a Louisville school with two confirmed and two probable cases.

Nearly half the students at Meyzeek Middle School did not go to school Friday.

"I think they shouldn't have come to school," Anitra Harvell said, as she picked up her niece, 8th grader Courtney Austin. "I think they should have stayed home. This is crazy."

Harvell says the only reason Austin went to school on Friday is because she had to take a math exam.

More than 470 of the 1,076 students at Meyzeek Middle School were absent. That's more than twice the number of absences on Thursday.

"We are asking that the families communicate with us," principal Chris Burba said. "We will excuse those absences."

Absences due to fear of swine flu, that is. The principal says no new probable or confirmed cases have been reported at the school since Thursday. But students' families still worry more cases may pop up.

"I think they should shut down the school," Harvell said.

"We are clearly recommending that schools stay open," Dr. Adewale Troutman, director of Metro Public Health & Wellness, said. "That is the recommendation from the department, the state health department, and based upon the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control."

The CDC and the World Health Organization are working with vaccine makers and doctors to come up with a flu shot against the H1N1 virus. They're hoping it'll be ready by the fall.

Indiana now has 120 cases of swine flu, after confirming 14 new cases: nine in Marion County, four in Lake County, and one in Monroe County.

Meanwhile, Meyzeek's principal is hoping a lot more students return to school on Tuesday, after the Memorial Day long weekend.

So far, across the U.S., most people who have gotten swine flu are young -- mostly between 5 and 24 years old. The CDC says the elderly may have more immunity to swine flu because some of them were exposed to a similar virus earlier in their lives.