The first confirmed outbreak of flu in Europe this winter has occurred in St Columba's college school in Rathfarnham in Dublin where over a quarter of the students were infected by the virus.
Flu affected 81 pupils and one staff member during the outbreak which began on September 7th.
According to the EU's Influenza Surveillance Scheme (EISS), the first case involved a pupil who had returned to the school from Britain four days earlier, so it is "likely that the flu was picked up locally".
It is described as the first "occurrence of a localised cluster of cases" in Europe this season.
A spokesman for St Columba's said they had had no new cases since September 24th.
Most pupils at the co-educational college are boarders. The number who were taken ill represented an "attack rate" by the virus of 26 per cent, according to Eurosurveillance.
Until now, only two isolated flu cases had been reported in Europe. Both occurred in September. One involved a four-year-old girl in Switzerland and the other an adult in Norway.