The Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday defended itself after parents criticized its decision to close an elementary school in Jhonghe (中和), Taipei County, for seven days after a student at an affiliated kindergarten tested positive for the A(H1N1) virus.
Wang Chun-chuan (王俊權), director of the Department of Physical Education, told reporters that the ministry had no option but to close the school temporarily because students at the primary and kindergarten sections of Guangfu Elementary School had participated in joint activities over the past few days.
Students at the two sections had lunch together and participated in a rehearsal for a primary section graduation ceremony, Wang said.
“It is impossible now to tell who had contact with the [sick student] and who did not,” he said.
He said the ministry would determine whether it was necessary to shut down other schools on a case-by-case basis should more swine flu cases arise.
The government ordered that the school be closed for seven days after a five-year-old girl tested positive for swine flu on Friday night.
However, the ministry’s move drew criticism from a number of parents whose children attend the primary section of the school, with some questioning the need to suspend their children’s classes.
Commenting on the decision to suspend classes, Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) told a press conference yesterday: “We have to consider the severity of the disease and the cost of [suspending schools].”
Yeh said that the decision to close Guangfu Elementary School would stand, but if other schools encountered similar situations, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) might choose not to temporarily close them.
“When swine flu first hit, the US closed schools with confirmed cases for up to two weeks ... Later it decided only to close schools for one week and now some close only for a few days,” he said.
Former department of health minister Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), who headed the ministry during the SARS outbreak in 2003 and later led the government’s efforts to combat bird flu as chairman of the inter-ministerial Avian and Pandemic Influenza Control Committee in 2005, made similar remarks.
“There is no one single standard for closing an institution. It depends on the severity of the disease, the pool of people at the institution and the likelihood of [the virus] spreading within the institution,” Chen said.
For example, if a case were found at a community center attended mostly by the elderly, the center should close because elderly people are more susceptible to developing severe flu symptoms because they have weaker immune systems, Chen said.
On the other hand, an office building may not need to close because most of the people working there would likely be healthy adults who can protect themselves by taking appropriate precautions, Chen said.
Meanwhile, the ministry urged Taiwanese students studying abroad who have developed flu symptoms to seek medical attention and consider postponing any plans to come home for the summer vacation.
Those who return from countries where the level of the flu outbreak has hit level 4, including Mexico, the US and Canada, should cooperate with health officials if asked to submit to a test for the virus or need to be quarantined, the ministry said.
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