Flu fears demand Schools in China to be closed

The Hong Kong government ordered all elementary schools and preschools to be closed, a week before Easter Holidays as a preventive measure against the deadly flu outbreak that has hit the region. The officials however insisted that, there were no sign of the involvement of SARS or bird flu.

The flu this year, has already claimed the lives of three children but experts insist the flu virus circulating Hong Kong is not more virulent than past viruses.

"I think this year we probably have a little bit more seasonal flu, perhaps more widespread," said Dr. Yuen Kwok-yung, a Hong Kong University professor. "But it's not more virulent."

The World Health Organization noted that at least two of the three children who died suffered with other causes of illness, and labeled the situation in Hong Kong as a regular flu outbreak.

The health minister of China said on Friday that, he has not seen unusual patterns in southern Guangdong province.

"We all know flu becomes common between winter and spring. Our analysis of Guangdong shows there haven't been more flu cases than previous years, but we're closely monitoring the situation," Chen Zhu told reporters in Beijing.

The government might be firm that the flu is a regular episode and nothing to panic about, but its decision to close the schools is causing fretfulness to the citizens.

Dr. Kwok Ka-ki, a lawmaker who represents the medical sector, said that the shutdown was arbitrary and possibly unnecessary. He pointed out that Dr. York Chow, Hong Kong’s secretary for health and food had said only the day before that he did not yet see a need to close the schools.

“The government is telling the people not to panic, but on the other hand is acting in panic,” he said.

Dr. Chow said that he was concerned that investigators needed to figure out exactly why the three children died and, therefore changed his mind and decided to close the school for the sake of more than 550,000 students.

Closing down the schools is serious as it reminds people of an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that hit Hong Kong in 2003. More than 8,000 people were affected between November 2002 and July 2003 and the World Health Organization considered it to be a ‘global threat.’ It claimed nearly 800 lives. So people are scared that a disease that demands shut down of schools could be of parallel severity.