The virus made a brief appearance in the Riverhead School District in June, officials said last week, just as classes were letting out for summer break.
Superintendent Diane Scricca said the district received a phone call last Tuesday from the Suffolk County health department's public health division saying there was a confirmed case of the H1N1 influenza, or swine flu.
She said the student is now well and symptom-free, and had never returned to school after first feeling flu symptoms June 10.
Last Friday marked the end of the year for all Riverhead students, officials said.
Dr. Scricca would not disclose the student's name or school, citing privacy issues. But district officials did post a small note about the diagnosis on its Web site last week.
"The only reason we put it out was so people don't become fearful that we didn't tell them," Dr. Scricca said. "The health department is not even reporting them anymore."
Health department spokesperson Grace McGovern said the delay between the onset of symptoms and the time the school district was notified is normal.
"In the time it takes for us to get it confirmed, the person is usually better," she said. The health department has tests done in a lab outside Albany, she said.
When swine flu was first reported earlier this year, it was considered a hybrid of several different types of flu. Because officials didn't know what to expect from the virus, the health department was at first issuing press releases for each confirmed case, Ms. McGovern said.
Since then, the county and others have dropped the term "swine flu" and started calling the virus by its scientific name, H1N1 influenza, and the county has stopped issuing a release for every case diagnosed, Ms. McGovern said. The county health department's Web site still publishes statistics on the number of cases countywide and the department has issued press releases for four H1N1-related deaths, Ms. McGovern said. But in each of those cases, the victim also had other medical problems.
She said the regular flu, which doesn't receive the same media coverage, results in about 36,000 deaths per year in the United States, while H1N1-related deaths worldwide total 313 this year.
tgannon@timesreview.com