Health work­ers sani­tised the Trinidad Mus­lim League (TML) Pri­ma­ry School in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day af­ter dozens of chil­dren fell ill with a  stom­ach ail­ment.

Par­ents said that at least 20 pupils in stan­dard four suf­fered from nau­sea and di­ar­rhoea on Tues­day. By yes­ter­day morn­ing, some of the stan­dard 3 pupils be­gan suf­fer­ing from the same symp­toms. This led to par­ents tak­ing their chil­dren out of school.

It fol­lowed a mes­sage from the school’s act­ing prin­ci­pal Wahi­da Mo­hammed-Nar­ine, who said, “This is to in­form you that some stu­dents from the Std 4 class vom­it­ed yes­ter­day. The par­ents were ad­vised to keep these chil­dren at home once they are ill. The class­rooms were sani­tised and the health au­thor­i­ties/school su­per­vi­sors were con­tact­ed. We will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and keep you post­ed. If your chil­dren are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing any symp­toms of ill­ness, please keep them away from school.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the school, of­fi­cials de­clined to speak, say­ing that a state­ment would be is­sued by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, one of­fi­cial con­firmed that the school was sani­tised and said class­es will re­sume to­mor­row as usu­al. While the cause of the sick­ness was not iden­ti­fied, he sus­pect­ed that one pupil came to school sick and spread a virus to oth­er pupils.

But one par­ent said his daugh­ter fell ill on Tues­day and maybe home for the rest of the week. The girl re­turned home vom­it­ing and was tak­en to the doc­tor who gave her hy­dra­tion salts. The par­ent, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said his daugh­ter’s nau­sea passed but she was left feel­ing weak. 

An­oth­er par­ent said he was on his way to drop his chil­dren to school when his wife called and told him to bring them back home.

An­oth­er par­ent said her daugh­ter was al­ready at school and when the in­for­ma­tion was shared through the school’s PTA group on What­sapp, she had to leave work to col­lect her daugh­ter. While her daugh­ter did not fall ill, she was await­ing in­for­ma­tion from the school to de­ter­mine whether or not it is safe to re­turn.