Posted: 25 May 2009 1811 hrs
This picture shows the Clifton Hill primary school in Melbourne closed after two boys were diagnosed with the H1N1 flu.
SYDNEY : Australian school children returning from a range of countries affected by the A (H1N1) flu will be asked to stay away from school for a week, state health authorities said.
Parents whose children who have visited the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico or Panama have been urged to keep them at home to help fight the spread of the virus.
"We will ask them to voluntarily place those school-age children in quarantine to isolate them at their homes for a period of seven days," Victoria state Health Minister Daniel Andrews told reporters.
Several other states, including New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia have made the same request since authorities raised the alert level over the transmission of the A(H1N1) virus last week.
Eighteen people in Australia have been confirmed as having swine flu, most of them in Victoria where eight of the state's 11 cases are school students. Several schools have already been temporarily closed.
Australia's chief medical officer Jim Bishop said the quarantine plan was an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus by pinpointing who might be carrying it rather than having to close an entire school.
"That way we can stop it spreading in school and that's much better than closing a school of 500 (students)," he said.
More than 12,000 H1N1 flu infections have been confirmed across 43 countries since the virus emerged in the Americas a month ago, according to World Health Organisation statistics.
- AFP/vm
From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.
This picture shows the Clifton Hill primary school in Melbourne closed after two boys were diagnosed with the H1N1 flu.SYDNEY : Australian school children returning from a range of countries affected by the A (H1N1) flu will be asked to stay away from school for a week, state health authorities said.
Parents whose children who have visited the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico or Panama have been urged to keep them at home to help fight the spread of the virus.
"We will ask them to voluntarily place those school-age children in quarantine to isolate them at their homes for a period of seven days," Victoria state Health Minister Daniel Andrews told reporters.
Several other states, including New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia have made the same request since authorities raised the alert level over the transmission of the A(H1N1) virus last week.
Eighteen people in Australia have been confirmed as having swine flu, most of them in Victoria where eight of the state's 11 cases are school students. Several schools have already been temporarily closed.
Australia's chief medical officer Jim Bishop said the quarantine plan was an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus by pinpointing who might be carrying it rather than having to close an entire school.
"That way we can stop it spreading in school and that's much better than closing a school of 500 (students)," he said.
More than 12,000 H1N1 flu infections have been confirmed across 43 countries since the virus emerged in the Americas a month ago, according to World Health Organisation statistics.
- AFP/vm
From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.
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