JEDDAH: Education Minister Prince Faisal bin Abdullah has revealed he had caught swine flu. “I did not know that I had contracted H1N1 virus except after conducting medical tests,” the minister said in reports published on Wednesday. He has since recovered.
Prince Faisal said he had received the same medication that the ministry is now offering to schools to combat the disease. “There is no need for this big hue and cry created by the media about swine flu,” he added.
He blamed the media for causing a panic about the disease. “There is no need to close schools again,” the minister said. But a reporter interrupted him, claiming people were worried about the disease.
Prince Faisal then retorted: “There is no fear. You, the media, are frightening the public. It’s true that swine flu is spreading fast but there’s no fear about it.”
He said it would not be mandatory for students to receive the anti-swine flu vaccine. He acknowledged that the arrangements to fight the disease in schools had been poorly implemented in certain places.
“Some of these schools are located in far-off places and it’s difficult to supply the required facilities there,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the swine flu related death of a 12-year-old schoolboy in Rass last week has led to a massive increase in absenteeism in schools in Qassim. Raid Naser Al-Otaibi, a pupil at Al-Abbas Intermediate School, died due to the H1N1 virus, something that led to his school’s closure for a week. “We were closed for a week after Raid’s death last week,” said Mohammad Al-Ghufaily, the headmaster of Al-Abbas Intermediate School. “We also experienced a poor attendance on Saturday,” he added.
“Raid was fine and was checked by the Ministry of Education’s medical unit. His medical report showed he was fit ... his death was a shock to us,” said Al-Ghufaily. “We only give students the swine flu medication if their temperature does not go down after one day,” said Dr. Munir Ibrahim, a physician at the Ministry of Education’s medical unit in Rass.
He added that the medical unit does not conduct tests to verify whether a patient is infected with swine flu or not. “The test is only performed in a laboratory in Riyadh,” he added.
Parents are also concerned about sending their children to school fearing they may catch swine flu.
