HFMD: Subang school shuts down

We’re not taking any chances, says principal Ellis Lee as students work from home for two days.

SUBANG JAYA: It has been a bother taking the students’ temperature daily and cleaning up the premises again but the Kingsley International School is not taking any chances with the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD).

A six-year-old pupil, who was ill when she came to school on Monday morning was sent to the clinic and sent home.

The parents informed school principal Ellis S.P. Lee later in the night that the child was down with HFMD. Lee immediately posted on the parent-teacher portal that the school would be closed for two days.

The school, located in the Putra Heights business area, was closed so that it could be cleaned again and sanitised. Bottles of sanitising liquid were also provided for every classroom.

Lee said she was not prepared to risk her students’ health.

It was no holiday for the children for the school had loaded them with homework during the two-day shutdown, For the teachers, it was work as usual for they had to follow up with the students who were doing their homework and checking on it with the parents.

“The school had just reopened after the term break so the student may have contracted the disease somewhere else,” said Lee in a report carried by Malay Mail Online.

Schools are more aware of HFMD following the death a standard one student in Plentong, Johor on April 11 of suspected HFMD.

Johor health authorities, however, said the death could not have been associated with HFMD as no strains of the Enterovirus 71 (EV71), which causes HFMD, were found in the student’s blood sample.