Published: Wednesday, 17th June, 2009 6:17pm

Council told don't shut swine flu schools

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COUNCIL bosses have said they will not send whole school classes home if a child is diagnosed with swine flu.

This is in line with new advice given by the Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

Parents of all 222 pupils at St David"s and Cochrane Castle Primaries, both in Johnstone, kept their children at home last week after two pupils tested positive for the virus on Tuesday June 9; one pupil from the P2/P3 composite class at St David"s and one pupil in the composite P3/P4 class at Cochrane Castle.

Kids from the family centre, which are housed in the same West Johnstone shared campus, were not excluded because they use a separate entrance to the building.

But now the Scottish Government has issued advice to Renfrewshire Council telling them NOT to exclude any other children than those directly affected by the infection.

Diagnosis will be done on the basis of clinical symptoms alone - without laboratory confirmation and the anti-viral Tamiflu drug will not be dispensed to whole classes or year groups.

This has been met with fierce concern from local parents.

One dad-of-three with a child at Cochrane Castle Primary said: 'It just goes to show that children are spreading it by being in close contact with each other.

'The virus started when a kid at St David"s in the same campus got it - not the same class or even year group.

'Now my son is at home, along with all his classmates.

'How is it going to be contained if children are allowed to play alongside each other?'

One confirmed case of the virus was announced at St Benedict"s High in Linwood and two at Kirklandneuk in Renfrew.

However, the affected children were not attending school at the time, therefore no pupils at all were sent home.

Of the changes in approach to tackling the flu, Nicola Sturgeon said: 'Where more sizeable clusters arise and where there is evidence of community transmission - such as we have seen in Dunoon, Glasgow and Paisley - our current approach of tracing and offering prophylaxis to all close contacts becomes less effective.

'In addition, because it involves giving antivirals to very large numbers of people, many of whom will not be ill, the risk of the virus developing resistance to Tamiflu increases.'

At the time of going to press, the number of confirmed cases in Scotland had risen to over 500.

The Scottish Government has advised anyone in Scotland who develops flu-like symptoms, or has recently returned from one of the affected areas and is worried about their health, to contact NHS 24 in the first instance on 08454 24 24 24.