Swine flu outbreak closes Japanese school in Germany available (2nd Roundup)

Jun 11, 2009, 16:14 GMT

Dusseldorf - The Japanese school in Dusseldorf has been closed following an outbreak of swine flu which has infected at least 32 pupils, officials in the west German city said Thursday.

Hundreds of students and their parents were tested for the H1N1 disease on Thursday after the infected students were placed under quarantine at home with their parents.

Nearly all the cases involved children aged 12, said Heiko Schneitler, head of the Dusseldorf Health Office. Most of the cases were not severe, but one child required hospital treatment, he said.

So far only half the 300 tests carried out had been evaluated, Schneitler said. Evaluation of the rest is expected to be completed by lunchtime Friday. Officials expect to find more instances of the influenza by the time that process is completed.

Some 50 teachers and 530 students are registered at the school, which is located in a leafy suburb of Dusseldorf, home to the third largest Japanese community in Europe after London and Paris.

The school will remain closed until the end of next week.

The outbreak raised to more than 100 the number of swine flu cases in Germany, Europe's most populous nation.

The first case involved a six-year-old who had just returned from a holiday with his family on the Maltese island of Gozo in the Mediterranean Sea, Schneitler said.

The health official said it was possible the child picked up the infection at the airport. His father and another child in the family were also affected.

The other cases involved a group of sixth-graders who stayed in youth hostels on a school trip to the east of Germany from Wednesday to Friday last week. On their return some complained of chills and fever.

In the meantime, the families under quarantine were being cared for by members of the Japanese community and the consulate-general in Dusseldorf. About 8,000 Japanese people live in the city.

The World Health Organization (WHO) upgraded the status of the influenza virus to a pandemic on Thursday, according to various health ministers who had been alerted of the designation in advance of an official WHO announcement.

Pandemic is the highest level of the agency's six-tiered alert system and indicates that the disease has spread globally.

This assessment would not have a big impact in Germany, where measures corresponding to a Phase 6 alert have already been implemented, said a speaker for the Robert Koch Institute which monitors diseases.

Latest figures by the World Health Organization show that 74 countries have reported 27,737 cases of infection, including 141 deaths.

Most of the cases, and nearly all the deaths, were in North America.

   In Europe, the most affected countries are Britain with 666 cases and Spain with 331.