DOH revised guidelines on suspension of classes due to swine flu
Posted on June 24th, 2009
The Department of Health has issued revised guidelines for schools regarding the suspension of classes due to the Influenza A(H1N1). The DOH said that schools officials should suspend only the specific classes and offices attended by students or personnel who have were found positive with the virus.
Doctor Asuncion Maderazo-Anden, director of the National Center of Health and Promotion of the DOH said the revision of the guidelines were necessary so that classes or offices not attended by the A(H1N1) cases would not be disrupted unnecessarily.
Anden said, “The DOH is revising its previous guideline that schools should close for 10 days when at least one of its students test positive for the virus. Instead, suspension of classes will have to be evaluated based on the school set-up or physical configuration and mainly include the classes attended by the confirmed case.â€
“Since the implementation of A(H1N1) guidelines for schools on June 1, DOH have seen that there is no one-size-fits-all formula to contain the virus or stop its spread in the school, every school has its own configuration or set-up,†added Anden.
For clustered and air-conditioned buildings such as De La Salle University in Manila, which was the first school to report an A(H1N1) case, suspension of the classes in the entire school is logical. But in schools where buildings are spread on campus like the University of the Philippine in Diliman, Anden said it is not necessary.
In the new guidelines, there is no need to suspend classes in schools located in a community outbreak area, unless there are severe cases involved, which would be determined by DOH, according to Anden.
From the report of the Department of Education (DepEd), there were already 116 students in 51 schools which were tested positive for A(H1N1) virus. These schools are mostly located in Metro Manila.
123 more new cases were confirmed by DOH on Thursday, bringing the total number of cases to 727, since the first case was confirmed last May. From these, 536 have already recovered.
