Abu Dhabi, September 06: Public and private schools in Abu Dhabi have been instructed to report suspected cases of swine flu to the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC), which will refer them to the Health Authority-Abu Dhabi (HAAD).
“Private and public schools in Abu Dhabi emirate should follow the official pathway by notifying ADEC of all H1N1 suspected cases,” asserted Dr Amer Al Kindi, school health manager in ADEC.
“The H1N1 pathway for schools mandates that ADEC is the first point of contact for schools. ADEC will then refer (suspected) cases to HAAD for their review and instruction on how best to proceed,” he told Khaleej Times.
“We are working closely with HAAD on all aspects, but it is important for the correct reporting procedure to be followed to have a centralised notification process and to ensure that we can carefully monitor the health situation within each school,” Al Kindi stressed.
Schools are required to fill out the official notification form and e-mail to h1n1.notification@adec.ac.ae or fax it to 02-6150859. The notification form and reporting instructions have been uploaded on the ADEC website.
ADEC will report all suspected cases to HAAD on a regular basis, and ADEC will relay HAAD’s recommendations and decisions back to the schools.
“If HAAD makes the decision to close a certain class or school for a period of time based on their careful analysis of the situation, ADEC will then communicate this decision back to the school,” Al Kindi said.
Students who show two or more flu-like symptoms should be taken to the nearest healthcare facility, either a hospital or a clinic. The child should be kept at home in isolation for a minimum of seven days or at least 24 hours until symptoms are gone without the aid of medicine, or whichever is longer.
This procedure was relayed to all 75 schools that attended the swine flu prevention training.
Al Kindi urged schools to cooperate and take the training seriously.
“We have synchronised the swine flu training with the opening date of schools, and we are concluding the final schedule of training sessions this week,” said Al Kindi.
Next week, training sessions in Abu Dhabi are scheduled on Monday and Wednesday and Tuesday and Thursday in Al Ain. All schools are required to send representatives to one of these sessions. Al Kindi called on all schools to update their contact details with ADEC, including telephone number, fax, e-mail address and mobile number of the principal to healthalert@adec.ac.ae in order to facilitate important health communications between ADEC and schools.
“Everybody should play their role actively and positively. We can prevent spreading the flu by working together,” Al Kindi pointed out.
Whom to inform
To notify ADEC on suspected swine flu case in schools:
e-mail: h1n1.notification@adec.ac.ae υ Fax: 02-6150859
To update contact details of all private and public schools:
e-mail: healthalert@adec.ac.ae
Contact details should include school telephone number, fax, e-mail address and mobile number of the principal.
–Agencies