Sorry kids, school's still on.

The first two New Mexico influenza patients being checked for swine flu had absolutely no exposure in state public schools, said Deborah Busemeyer, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health.

The department sent two samples it suspects could be swine flu to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday and two more on Thursday, from a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy from Soccoro County.

The department does not have school exposure information yet for the two cases sent Thursday.

The first two samples were from a batch of about 23 tested in New Mexico. The second two were from a batch of 60 or so. All the samples were taken from nasal swabs that were sent in to the state lab from doctors around the state, Busemeyer said.

"And they're going to get a lot more," she said of the lab, adding that staff will probably end up working through the weekend as samples continue to stream in.

The department hopes to hear back from CDC on whether the first two cases are, in fact, swine flu by the end of the day today, Busemeyer said.

She was uncertain when the second two samples would be tested. All four patients are recovering.

The state lab will send any other suspicious samples to CDC until the state gets new test materials from the agency so the lab here can do its own testing to confirm swine flu. Officials are hoping those new materials will arrive today, Busemeyer said.

"Once we get those in, we'll have to configure them, so hopefully we'll be able to do full tests by early next week," Busemeyer said.

For students hoping to start their summers early, neither of two possible flu cases associated with Santa Fe Public Schools on Wednesday ended up being an exposure threat, said Erica Landry, a spokeswoman.

In one case, the young child of a school district worker who tested positive for influenza type A, stayed home and wasn't exposed to other children in day care or at any school in the district, Landry said.

Neither the Health Department nor Landry could confirm if the child's sample was the same as that of the 1-year-old Santa Fe County boy that was sent to the CDC on Wednesday. But Landry did confirm that the school district worker's family has not been to Mexico recently. "Certainly not within the last five years," Landry said.

The other suspected flu case involved a student at Santa Fe High School, who apparently went home sick with "flu-like symptoms" on Wednesday, and ended up not having the flu at all, she said.

"He is confirmed as having allergies," Landry said.  

CDC page on swine flu: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

Contact Sue Vorenberg at svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.