TROY — Rensselaer County officials confirmed Wednesday that a 28-year-old Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student who was found dead inside his apartment earlier this week died from influenza.

Yeming Shen was discovered by his roommate on Monday inside their shared City Station apartment in Troy, said Mary Fran Wachunas, the county's public health director.

An autopsy completed at Albany Medical Center the next day confirmed the graduate student had influenza A — a type of flu that "comes on very sudden and severe," Wachunas said.

"What happened this year was flu came in quite early and when it comes in early it does sometimes divide and mutate and so we have a couple strains circulating right now," she said.

School and county health officials had to work immediately to quell concerns that Shen, a student from China, may have died of the novel coronavirus discovered in Wuhan, China in December, even though he had not traveled outside the U.S. for at least 13 months.

The county worked with RPI and the state Department of Health to investigate the cause, said Richard Crist, the county's director of operations, in a statement.

"Further testing is expected to be completed in several days," Crist said in a statement. "As we stated yesterday, we do not believe there is any risk to the public. Our condolences to the family and friends of the student."

RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson informed the campus of Shen's death via email Wednesday afternoon, and said counseling and grief services are available to those who need them.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Yeming's family, fellow students, friends, and teachers," she said. "We are all saddened by the loss of one of our own. Please support each other during this difficult time."

In a separate email sent to students the same day, Dr. Leslie Lawrence, executive director for health and wellness on campus, said RPI has noted "five times the number" of flu cases it usually sees this time of year. He also said the campus is out of flu vaccine, but will be receiving a limited shipment to the Student Health Center in the next couple days.

Both school and county health officials declined to say whether Shen had sought medical intervention in the days and weeks prior to his death, citing privacy concerns.

Shen was studying Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems. He previously earned a master of science degree in operational research and cybernetics and a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and applied math, both from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. He was working toward his doctorate in decision sciences and engineering systems, studying interdicting interdependent networks.



In 2018, Yeming won the IEEE HST Best Track Paper Award for his paper "Land/Maritime Borders and Critical Infrastructure Protection Track." He was an editorial reviewer for Omega (The International Journal of Management Science). He also served as a teaching and research assistant in the School of Engineering.

Flu is currently active and widespread in New York. Cases have been confirmed in all 62 counties statewide, with 89,597 cases as of Feb. 7. The state Department of Health said it received reports of 17,231 lab-confirmed cases in the previous week alone. The most lab-confirmed influenza cases reported to the state during a single week was 18,252 in 2017-18.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nationwide so far this season there have been at least 22 million flu illnesses, 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths from flu.

While people typically associate flu deaths with the very young and the very old, Wachunas emphasized Wednesday that flu can affect anyone.

"Flu kills people," she said. "I think a lot of times we take it for granted because it comes around every year, but it's a very serious virus and it kills people across this country every year."

The best way to protect yourself, experts say, is to get an annual flu shot, stay home when sick, wash your hands frequently, and cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.

(CDC has more prevention tips here)

Correction: A previous version of this article contained the wrong age for Shen. He was 28.