They said that when they last saw her about a week ago she was coughing and complaining of stomach pain. She was overweight, the girls said — a factor that can make people vulnerable to the virus, health experts have said.  The other two new deaths were of a child younger than 2, the second death of a child that young, and a person older than 30, the health department said.  City health officials continued to face questions over their handling of the spread of swine flu, which has killed at least 15 people in the city.  At a City Council hearing on the issue on Thursday, council members said that the city had been slow to provide information about the illness and that its decisions to close schools seemed arbitrary.  Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. of Queens said the public should be told if those who die after contracting the virus have pre-existing illnesses. Health officials have said that virtually all of those who have died had a condition that made them more susceptible to the flu.  But the officials have not specified those conditions, and the list of high-risk factors is so long — including heart disease, obesity and being older than 65 — that as many as one in three New Yorkers may have at least one.  “Why is the information about the people who have succumbed to this flu being kept secret?” Mr. Vallone asked.  The new health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, defended the city’s reluctance to divulge details about people who have come down with the virus.  “We have to separate what’s important for people to know and plan versus privacy,” Dr. Farley said. “Specific medical information about individual patients will not change how an individual or an organization responds.”  Council members also expressed concern about the increase in visits to emergency rooms last month. Health officials said the number of visits appeared to be declining, but the department would continue to monitor the data.  Dr. Farley said increased federal funding would be crucial as the city prepared for the next flu season and the possibility that a more severe strain of the virus would develop. Flu seasons typically begin in the fall and peak in the winter.  As of Thursday, city officials estimated that swine flu had spread rapidly, affecting more than half a million people.  But since the beginning of the outbreak, only 567 New Yorkers have been hospitalized with swine flu.  City officials suggested that the low rate of hospitalization indicated how mild the strain of virus had been.  Ann Farmer, Anemona Hartocollis and Karen Zraick contributed reporting.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: New Victims Of Swine Flu Include 11-Year-Old. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The victim, a girl who was in the sixth grade at the Urban Assembly School for Criminal Justice in Brooklyn, was the first public school student to die of swine flu. Her death was among three announced on Thursday.