The head of the Allegheny County Health Department yesterday said he wasn't surprised by the hundreds of apparent swine flu cases already reported at local universities and expects the same thing to happen very soon at local public and parochial schools.

"We will see the same thing in the public and parochial schools by Friday or Monday and will be asking the schools about their absentee rates and what seems to be going around," Dr. Bruce Dixon said at a county health board meeting.

Dr. Dixon's comments came a day after Carnegie Mellon University sent out a communique to its students, faculty and staff that said over the past three weeks more than 200 students had reported "influenza-like illness." Some of those cases were tested and officially confirmed as H1N1 flu.

Dr. Anita Barkin, director of CMU's Student Health Center, said yesterday that because most of the students got sick in clusters and presented the same symptoms, they could be presumed as having swine flu, too. The majority of those sickened took part in week-long orientation, she said.

However, there was good news at CMU: Most of the cases were mild and the outbreak seems to be decreasing, her message to the CMU community said.

Fewer than 30 students remained in isolation housing or in their own rooms on campus and a like amount were recovering in their own off-campus housing. Some students were moved into two campus buildings that formerly housed a student organization and a sorority. Both groups just recently moved into renovated housing and CMU, aware of the potential for a swine flu outbreak, decided to keep the buildings available.

"It had a lot to do with timing. Spaces became available as we headed into this situation. The planets were in alignment," Dr. Barkin said.

The medical director said two of the ill students were hospitalized but "recovered nicely." Students with underlying medical conditions that could have led to complications were given antiviral medications.

But most of the illness was termed mild to moderate. Those students had fever for two days and recovered within five.

Other symptoms reported by the sick students were chills, body ache, fatigue, cough, runny nose and sore throat, Dr. Barkin said. "We have had a very few who have had some nausea and diarrhea, but very few."

The message was sent out to announce establishment of an information hot line for the CMU community at 412-268-4161. The hot line will be staffed from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and from noon to 10 p.m. on weekends.

"I don't think it will completely go away," Dr. Barkin said. "You can't stop a pandemic but you can try to slow it down. ... We're in that place right now and hopefully we'll continue to be in that place going forward."

So far, CMU has been the hardest hit of Pittsburgh's major universities.

A University of Pittsburgh spokesman said the flu count remained the same as yesterday: one confirmed case of H1N1 and a "few" people with influenza-type symptoms.

At Duquesne University, a spokeswoman said there were no confirmed nor suspected cases of H1N1.

Pennsylvania State University in State College does have H1N1 cases on campus.

"In July we had some H1N1 and then it disappeared," said Dr. Evan Pattishall, medical director of the University Health Services. "We had no cases through the end of August and now we're starting to get a few students with ILI -- influenza like illness. We do have H1N1 confirmed here. We've had a few cases last week." Dr. Pattishall defined a "few cases" as "fewer than six."

Dr. Dixon, meanwhile, told the health board that his department will meet with city, parochial and suburban school representatives next week to assess the local H1N1 risk and make tentative plans for handling a widespread outbreak and for distributing vaccine should it become available.

He then will report those preparations to Pennsylvania Health Secretary Everette James.