Hong Kong shuts all primary schools to prevent swine flu (Roundup)

Jun 11, 2009, 8:34 GMT

Health employees wearing protective masks clean the lobby of a residential building after the first domestic case of influenza A H1N1 virus was confirmed in Hong Kong, China, on 10 June 2009. According to the Hong Kong health authorities the 55-year-old man had caught the virus within the city. EPA/YM YIK

   Hong Kong - The Hong Kong government announced Thursday it would shut all primary schools and kindergartens for a fortnight after the discovery of the city's first domestic swine-flu cases.

   The decision comes after 12 pupils at one school were found to be infected with swine flu virus in the first local cluster of cases in the densely-populated city of 7 million.

   Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang said the city's 1,800 nurseries, kindergartens, and primary schools would close from Friday for two weeks to slow the spread of the disease.

   Appealing to people not to panic, Tsang said the measure was being taken as part of the former British colony's contingency measures to stop the spread of the H1N1 virus.

   'Given the global situation, that Hong Kong will have its local cases is simply inevitable,' Tsang told reporters. 'I believe that fellow citizens and the government have done all we can in postponing the arrival of the first indigenous case.

   'There is no need to panic but there is every need for staying alert and paying heightened attention to personal and community hygiene.'

   The closure signals the start of an extended summer holiday for most primary schools which were due to break up for the annual vacation in a fortnight's time in any case.

   The alert was sounded when St Paul's Convent School in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay was closed Wednesday after one student who had not travelled overseas was found to have the disease.

   Eleven other students were discovered to have flu symptoms and test results confirmed Thursday they also had the swine-flu virus. None is seriously ill.

   Forty-nine cases of swine flu have so far been detected in Hong Kong but all previous cases involved people who travelled outside the city.

   Hong Kong has a hyper-sensitive safeguards mechanism against virus outbreaks after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus killed 299 people and infected 1,799 in 2003.

   When the first swine-flu case was detected in a Mexican visitor at the beginning of May, the Hong Kong hotel where he stayed was quarantined for a week with 300 guests and staff forced to remain inside.