The Jajarkot Swine Flu outbreak has forced at least 50 schools to close in the disease-affected VDCs for two weeks.
An emergency meeting of the Jajarkot District Natural Disaster Relief Committee on Wednesday decided to close all public and private schools in Paink, Archhane, Sakala, Nayakwada, Pajaru and Talegaun VDCs until 28 April. In these six VDCs, a flu-like disease has killed at least 17 people in less than a month and hundreds of people are suffering from flu and fever.
On Tuesday, a test conducted by the National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) had confirmed the disease to be a Swine Flu outbreak. Three of the 12 saliva samples collected from the Jajarkot patients had tested positive for H1N1 virus, commonly known as Swine Flu.
"The closure of schools is a precautionary measure to prevent the outbreak from spreading to other VDCs," said Jagat Bahadur Basnet, Jajarkot's Chief District Officer. "If the outbreak is not contained in two weeks, we will extend the closure of schools."
The meeting also decided to set up health desks at every point via which people leave Jajarkot district.
The Jajarkot district administration has also urged people not to organise social gatherings for a few days. "Health teams are sent to the disease-affected VDCs," said Basnet. "But new VDCs are getting infected with Swine Flu and we need to stop it from spreading further."
Local authorities did not consider Jajarkot's unidentified disease as a serious threat until early this week. After it was confirmed to be a Swine Flu outbreak, they called an emergency meeting to take precautionary measures.
In 2009, Jajarkot was hit by an even more deadly outbreak of cholera that killed more than 300 people in around 20 VDCs.