RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

There has been low stu­dent at­ten­dance at the Debe Hin­du School ever since five Stan­dard Three pupils be­came in­fect­ed with the high­ly con­ta­gious Hand, Foot and Mouth Dis­ease (HFMD).

A con­cerned par­ent, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said the first case was de­tect­ed ear­ly last week and teach­ers car­ried out thor­ough ex­am­i­na­tion of all stu­dents. On Wednes­day sent a no­tice to par­ents, ad­vis­ing them not to send their chil­dren to school if they had any symp­toms of the dis­ease.

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) Vi­jay Ma­haraj con­firmed that the cas­es had been con­fined to the Stan­dard Three class. He said it was im­por­tant to have prop­er sani­ti­sa­tion to con­tain the spread but acute wa­ter short­age in south Trinidad was mak­ing this dif­fi­cult.

Ma­haraj said the Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer was con­tact­ed

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the dis­ease is a mild, con­ta­gious vi­ral in­fec­tion that com­mon in young chil­dren.

“Symp­toms in­clude sores in the mouth and a rash on the hands and feet,” she said, em­pha­siz­ing that while there is no spe­cif­ic treat­ment for HFMD, fre­quent hand-wash­ing and min­i­miz­ing close con­tact with in­fect­ed in­di­vid­u­als sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duces the risk of in­fec­tion.

Gads­by-Dol­ly a few cas­es to emerge in schools pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly and they are ad­dressed by “iso­lat­ing af­fect­ed chil­dren and send­ing them home un­til their symp­toms have cleared.”

There were cas­es of HFMD at the Pe­nal Vedic School two weeks ago, but the school has since re­turned to nor­mal op­er­a­tions. In March, the Care­nage Pri­ma­ry School re­port­ed some cas­es along with schools in the South East­ern Di­vi­sion.

How HFMD spreads

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC), the virus is spread through res­pi­ra­to­ry droplets and off sur­faces. Those in­fect­ed are usu­al­ly more con­ta­gious dur­ing the first week that they are sick.

You can get hand, foot, and mouth dis­ease by:

- Con­tact with res­pi­ra­to­ry droplets con­tain­ing virus par­ti­cles af­ter a sick per­son coughs or sneezes.

- Touch­ing an in­fect­ed per­son or mak­ing oth­er close con­tact, like kiss­ing, hug­ging, or shar­ing cups or eat­ing uten­sils.

- Touch­ing an in­fect­ed per­son’s fae­ces, such as chang­ing di­a­pers, then touch­ing eyes, nose, or mouth.

- Touch­ing ob­jects and sur­faces that have the virus on them, like door­knobs or toys, then touch­ing eyes, nose, or mouth.