Egypt's Minister of Education Youssri el-Gamal yesterday asked parents not to prevent their children from attending classrooms for fear of catching swine flu, stressing that schools will reopen on Saturday without further delay."I urge all parents across the nation to allow their children to attend school, without being worried that they would catch swine flu," el-Gamal said during a meeting with his aides. He added that parents should be more concerned with their children's hygiene rather than preventing them from going to school."Plans have been drawn up for schools to confront the swine flu spread. The classrooms will have disinfectants; bathrooms will be provided with soap and clean potable water; and masks will be distributed among pupils," el-Gamal said.He added that the schools' quarantine rooms were ready to receive any suspected case. The council of governors had delayed the start of the new school year for one week to October 3, instead of September 26 to make sure that all the precautions to prevent the A/H1N1 spread are in place."Teachers and school managers will play a vital role in the plan to prevent the virus through informing the authorities concerned about any suspected case," the minister said.Meanwhile, the world Health Organisation said yesterday that only one dose of the swine flu vaccine would be enough to prevent the contraction of the virus for adults and youngsters."One dose of the vaccine is enough, although some countries prefer two separate doses two weeks away from each other," a statement by the international organisation said yesterday.Egyptian Minister of Health Dr Hatem el-Gabali refuted reports that the new swine flu had serious side effects."The new vaccine is completely safe. Anyway, Egypt will get 80,000 doses by mid-October and the large amounts will be received by mid-January. This means that if there were any side effects, they would appear in the countries who will use it in these three months," Dr el-Gabali told the semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram in remarks published yesterday.He added that the contract with the British company to provide the virus would be automatically changed if the virus mutated. "In case of mutation the vaccine will not be valid. Therefore, we will get the vaccine for a third its price," el-Gabali said.Egypt has reported nearly 92 swine flu cases and two deaths since April. The authorities have culled the country's 350,000 pigs amid fears that the virus will spread in crowded places, such as schools lecture halls and cinema houses. Meanwhile, the ministries of higher education and information technology recently intensified cooperation to boost distance learning facilities.A special supplement on the situation appears in the weekly edition of The Gazette, the Egyptian Mail, tomorrow.
From the Egyptian Gazette
