Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Two schools in Port-of-Spain have been shut down be­cause of sev­er­al con­firmed cas­es of the chikun­gun­ya virus.Sources said that the New­town Boys' and Girls' RC Schools were closed yes­ter­day so that Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion of­fi­cials could deal with the prob­lem.A school source said close to a dozen stu­dents from New­town Girls' and Boys' had com­plained of flu-like symp­toms over the past two weeks and at least four were con­firmed cas­es of ChikV.

The af­fect­ed stu­dents were said to be from the Bel­mont and Mar­aval ar­eas. The schools will re­open on Mon­day.The source said pub­lic health in­spec­tors vis­it­ed both schools on Wednes­day and arranged to have them fu­mi­gat­ed yes­ter­day and to­day."We were ad­vised not to re­port for du­ty be­cause the schools will need at least two days to air out so we will be go­ing back to class­es on Mon­day," the source said.

Asked whether oth­er schools were af­fect­ed, the of­fi­cial said that was un­cer­tain."When the health in­spec­tors came they were alarmed at the num­ber of mos­qui­toes, so they de­cid­ed to spray to­day (yes­ter­day). The cy­cle of spray­ing is done once a year but this is not suf­fi­cient," the source said.The of­fi­cial ex­plained that some stu­dents at­tend­ing the schools came from as far away as Ari­ma and Ch­agua­nas.

"We are con­cerned that if a bet­ter cy­cle of spray­ing is not de­vel­oped then the virus could be spread to oth­er parts of the coun­try," the of­fi­cial said.Both schools are on Mar­aval Road, New­town. The boys' school has 700 pupils while 590 stu­dents at­tend the girls' school.

Last week, the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) said the Caribbean must brace for the full im­pact of the virus. He said with a pop­u­la­tion of 17 mil­lion peo­ple, the re­gion was still in the ear­ly stages and the "full bloom of chikun­gun­ya virus is yet to come."

Au­thor­i­ties: No­body told us

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Lyns­ley Doo­d­hai, sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), said he was not aware of the clo­sure of the schools, but said:

"I will ad­vise the teach­ers that when they meet con­di­tions detri­men­tal to their health and safe­ty, they should leave the af­fect­ed ar­eas un­til the nec­es­sary work is done so as to en­sure their health is not af­fect­ed."TTUTA pres­i­dent De­vanand Sinanan al­so said he was al­so un­aware of the chikun­gun­ya cas­es.

"We have no of­fi­cial re­ports. All we are hear­ing is ru­mours. No­body called us to in­form us of­fi­cial­ly. Last week some teach­ers ex­pressed con­cern about ChikV but we are guid­ed by the pro­to­cols of the Pub­lic Health De­part­ment," he added.

Say­ing TTUTA was not in a po­si­tion to tell schools how to treat with such prob­lems, Sinanan said:

"This must be a de­ci­sion tak­en by the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health (CMOH) so we are ad­vis­ing that if there is a prob­lem the au­thor­i­ties should li­aise with the pub­lic health in­spec­tors." He al­so said it would be ir­re­spon­si­ble of him to make pro­nounce­ments on the is­sue with­out sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence.Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan said yes­ter­day he was un­aware that the schools were af­fect­ed but would in­ves­ti­gate.

Con­tact­ed af­ter yes­ter­day's Par­lia­ment sit­ting, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh al­so said he was un­aware of the clo­sures but promised to make some en­quiries to­day.How­ev­er, he said: "We have to look at the home en­vi­ron­ment al­so be­cause it doesn't nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that stu­dents got the virus at school."

Gopeesingh not­ed that Khan had shown him en­quiries from the T&T Guardian on the mat­ter while they were in Par­lia­ment, adding that the Health Min­istry will take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tion­ary ac­tions, in­clud­ing fu­mi­gat­ing the schools.