2006-08-14
NINETY-THREE teachers and students have been quarantined in a high school in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region after 69 students contracted acute hepatitis A, health officials said.
Fifty-six of the 69 students were still hospitalized yesterday. Yu Yang, deputy director of the Pingnan County Health Bureau, said Siwang Township reported 77 acute hepatitis A cases from July 21 to Wednesday, 69 of whom are students of the Siwang Township No. 2 High School.
As of yesterday, 13 of the 77 patients had recovered and been discharged from hospital.
Yu did not disclose any other new cases of the disease.
Pingnan County health authorities conducted health checks on all the teachers and students of the school and their family members to block the spread of the disease.
The school has 1,800 teachers and students, 1,557 of whom have undergone tests, which proved 188 to be anti-HAV-IGM positive. Doctors have injected human immune globin to curb the spread of the disease and alleviate the symptoms of the patients.
The cause of the outbreak is unknown, said Zhang Jianquan, head of the Pingnan County Health Bureau, adding bad drinking water quality may be blamed for the outbreak.
Local epidemic prevention station’s tests show all the water quality in the five wells which provide drinking water for the school is far from meeting the standards for safe drinking water.
Currently, 380 students of the school, who are now spending the summer vacation with their parents in Guangdong and Fujian provinces, have not undergone health checks. Whether this group of students have contracted hepatitis A is unknown, said Li Desheng, headmaster of the school.