By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Two youths are Florida’s first confirmed cases of swine flu, officials confirmed Friday.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist directed the state’s surgeon general to declare a public health emergency, empowering Dr. Ana M. Viamonte Ros to take any action necessary to prevent the flu’s spread.

“We do expect to see more cases over the coming days and weeks,” Viamonte Ros said.

Authorities withheld full identification of the victims, but said they were an 11-year-old boy from Lee County, on Florida’s southwest coast, and a 17-year-old girl from Broward County in South Florida.

The boy attends Spring Creek Elementary, while the girl is a student at Hallandale High School. Officials said she had recently been to Mexico, the center of the epidemic.

Crist said he would let local officials decide how to handle the situation at schools. Officials from the Broward and Lee county school districts did not immediately respond to telephone messages left by The Associated Press.

Federal officials say 19 states have at least one confirmed case of swine flu, and some, like New York and Texas, have many more. So far only one person in the United States has died from the virus.

President Barack Obama has said officials were focusing on identifying people who have the flu and laboring to produce a vaccine down the line.

Florida officials earlier referred eight suspected cases of swine flu to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for more testing from six counties: Alachua, Orange, Lee, Broward, Palm Beach and Pinellas.

About 400 schools were closed nationwide, with about 300 in Texas. Others were scattered from coast to coast, including Tennessee, Nebraska, Maine, Maryland, New York, California, Ohio and Arizona.