As the flu continues to sicken New Yorkers, Senator Chuck Schumer is calling for federal help.
He says a special CDC flu-surveillance team should be dispatched to the state.
New York hospitals have recorded a surge of influenza cases lately. Schumer says the CDC team would help track individual strains, identify the most effective treatments, and map out a plan of attack.
This past week, flu cases in New York increased by a reported 54-percent. Officials say this is one of the worst flu seasons in years.
More than 20-thousand individual cases of influenza have been reported statewide.