All schools close as Sars claims first two lives

SINGAPORE] For the first time in more than 50 years, the Ministry of Education has decided to close all national schools in response to deep public anxiety over the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).

The announcement came as the mysterious virus claimed its first two lives over the last two days.

Said Education Minister Rear Admiral Teo Chee Hean: “On purely medical grounds, there are currently no strong reasons for closing all schools. However, principals and general (medical) practitioners have reported that parents continue to be concerned about the risk to their children.”

Primary schools, secondary schools, junior colleges, centralised institutes, special education schools and madrasahs (religious schools for Muslims) will all be closed from today till April 6 in a move that affects 600,000 children. To make up for lost curriculum time, the school term will be extended into the June holidays.

Universities, polytechnics and institutes of technical education will, however, continue to operate because their students are “older and better able to understand the situation and take the necessary precautions”, said the ministry statement.

Childcare and pre-school centres have also been advised to close. However, these centres will still accept children if their parents cannot find any other means of taking care of them. A nationwide school closure of this nature has not happened since the polio scare of the 1940s.

Meanwhile, two Sars patients in Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s intensive care unit have died. The first – a male patient in his forties – was in intensive care for a week before succumbing to lung failure on Tuesday night. Details of the second death, which occurred last night, could not be obtained by press time. Nine patients are still in intensive care.

Five new patients – all hospital staff – were yesterday also found to have caught the infection, bringing the total number of Sars cases in Singapore to 74. So far, 13 have been discharged while 59 are still in hospital, of which three are children. In addition to the 59, there are also patients at Tan Tock Seng with milder Sars symptoms and are classified as “suspected cases”. There are six children in this group.

Meanwhile the home quarantine measures announced on Monday are still in force, with more people having been added to the list after they came into contact with Sars patients. There are currently over 860 people required to stay at home under the Infectious Diseases Act. Regular spot checks will be made on them by a group of 50 ministry officials to make sure they stay at home.

A World Health Organisation official has also been sent to Singapore to assist the health authorities in understanding and containing the virus.

The official, Osman David Mansoor, endorses all the government’s efforts so far. A New Zealander scientist, Dr Mansoor reiterates that while very little is known about the disease, evidence strongly shows that Sars is only infectious when a patient shows the symptoms. He observes that most of the infections are caught only from close contact in a hospital environment when the infector is in a very serious condition.

The virus now seems to be under control. All cases are linked to the three original patients who had travelled to Hong Kong and each wave of infection has not been increasing. With firm government action in place, all Singaporeans can do now is wait.