British Health Secretary Alan Johnson announced on Thursday that two more cases of the A/H1N1 flu had been confirmed in Britain, bringing the total to 34.

In a statement to the House of Commons, the health secretary said one of the new cases was a child at one of the five schools that had already closed.

He said that 13 children were among the 34 cases confirmed and four schools had been closed on the advice of local health protection officers.

The fifth school and a linked nursery had also decided to shut "on their own volition," he said, after two pupils were diagnosed with the virus even though they had not been in class while displaying symptoms.

Ten of those diagnosed had not been to Mexico, but there was no evidence of "sustained" person-to-person transmission of the virus in Britain, he added.

However, it was reasonable to expect cases to increase and the situation "could rapidly escalate," he warned.

The latest Britons having been confirmed infected with H1N1 flu are an unnamed man in his 30s from North Weald in Essex and a third pupil in south London, health officials said.

The health secretary told members of Parliament that the government had boosted its stockpile of antiviral drugs to cover 80 percent of Britons and orders were in place for a vaccine when one becomes available.

A new quick-response system was also being developed in case the outbreak escalated, he added.

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2009)