Harry Potter Star Has Swine Flu as New Strain Emerges

The actor who plays schoolboy sorcerer Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies has a "mild case" of swine flu, the Daily Mail reports. Twenty-year-old Rupert Grint left the latest Potter film set for a few days, but plans to attend next week's premiere of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince in London. Meanwhile, health officials are probing a drug-resistant strain of swine flu, the Times of London reports.

The World Health Organization is investigating three cases—in Denmark, Japan, and Hong Kong—of swine flu that resists Tamiflu, the main drug used to treat the illness. The Hong Kong case stands out because the patient had not yet been treated with Tamiflu. The patient "has been identified at the airport so we suppose there are a considerable number of contacts in the aeroplane," a WHO officer says. (More Harry Potter stories.)