Shortly after another flu epidemic shut down a Southern California prison, officials at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione shut down two of the institution's three main yards last week when dozens of inmates started showing symptoms of the illness. Mule Creek officials closed the yards when 46 inmates at the prison about 40 miles east of Sacramentohospitalization. The closures came 11 days after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation imposed more drastic measures at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Riverside County.

At the prison near Blythe, two inmates died amid a flu outbreak that struck 805 prisoners, put 12 of them in the hospital and prompted authorities to shut down the institution to inmate transfers and all visiting. The official causes of the inmates' deaths are still under investigation. Weathersby said it was the vastness of the Chuckawalla illness outbreak that led prison officials at Mule Creek to take action at their prison. "We're being cautious," Weathersby said. "We're aware of what happened a few weeks back." began to come down with the flu. One of the two yards remained closed as of Friday, according to Mule Creek spokesman Chris Weathersby, meaning that inmate movements have been severely restricted to keep the illness from spreading. One Mule Creek inmate required