No morning assembly, teacher to check student for flu: New guidelines

Schools cannot conduct morning assembly, excursions, movie shows and cultural activities till the swine flu outbreak is contained.

In fresh guidelines to counter the viral outbreak — which has claimed 26 lives in the country and infected 1,927 people — the Union health ministry on Monday also made it mandatory for teachers to check students for viral fever or flu-like symptoms.

The ban on morning assembly, where students come in close contact with one another, will prevent the spread of the H1N1 virus among children, who are at  a higher risk of infection, Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said. “It is also being made mandatory for each teacher to… identify suspected students and immediately send them back with the advice that they should stay at home for a week.”

The ministry has told states with a shortage of medical manpower to seek help from the police and revenue departments to screen infected persons. It has also set up a task force under the department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (Ayush), which will submit its report in two days.

Azad said a law was being drafted to replace the Epidemic Control Act to bring more pandemics under it.

On Monday, 220 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu were reported, taking the national tally to 1,927. Mumbai led the chart, reporting 90 fresh cases, followed by Pune (42), Chennai (20), Ahmedabad (16), Bangalore (11), Delhi (7) and Nashik (5). Three cases each were reported in Nagpur and Kolkata.