The Monmouth County Courthouse will remain closed while testing is done to determine why dozens of staffers have become ill there in recent days.

Monmouth County Courthouse
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County officials say the building in Freehold will stay shuttered on Thursday and Friday, though they hope to reopen on Monday. Meanwhile, bare-bones court operations will continue at other sites in the county.

The courthouse has been closed since early Monday afternoon, when 25 people were hospitalized and roughly 40 more were treated for symptoms that included nausea, skin rashes, breathing difficulties and chest pains.

That outbreak came after 17 staffers had experienced similar symptoms on Friday. Authorities initially thought those workers had reactions to a freshly cut flower that a colleague had brought into the building, but that theory has now been ruled out.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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