The advisory committee of the UT Health department on Friday said no school should be shut in the city unless there are three or more positive cases of swine flu from different classes in the same school, and that a class be suspended only if all the positive cases are concentrated in one section. This comes in the wake of schools resorting to suspending classes or shutting completely after many students tested positive for H1N1.

Though parents are keen that schools be shut — attendance too has dwindled significantly — the advisory group, comprising health officials and doctors from the PGI and GMCH-32, said the spread of the flu “has not become a community spread” and there was no need for any more drastic measures other than following the health ministry’s guidelines.

The committee has asked the DPI (Schools) to gather information about the percentage of absentee students in each school within a week and present it before the committee for further analysis.

‘Private lab can’t conduct tests’
The Health department has directed private labs to not conduct swine flu tests without authorisation. Referring to the specific instance of Dr Lal Path Lab conducting H1N1 tests, the department said the lab did not have permission for it. The fact that the lab was conducting tests came to light after the UT health department came across several swine flu cases of school students. “The samples of these students were not examined in our laboratory,” said H C Gera, UT nodal officer for swine flu. Then the department found that tests were done by Dr Lal Path Lab.

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