Pupils still attending classes at the Grant Memorial Presbyterian School in San Fernando were yesterday given a lesson in applying hand sanitiser by the school’s principal, Barbara Sukhu.

Sukhu was presented with more than 200 bottles of hand sanitiser by Sacha Cosmetics yesterday.

The company’s presentation came days after the Ministry of Health ordered that part of the school be closed after two pupils contracted the Influenza H1N1 virus, and a third pupil was suspected of having it.

The closure of the block means that more than half the school’s enrolment of 1,100 was sent home.

It was on Tuesday that the two sick pupils, who had travelled abroad during the August vacation, were sent home from school after their test results for the virus came back positive. Several other pupils were sent home on Wednesday after showing flu-like symptoms.

Yesterday, the standard four and second year pupils huddled together in the school yard as Sukhu handed out bottles of sanitisers.

A parent said that a public health officer said at a PTA meeting on Thursday that the results of the third suspected case of Influenza H1N1 will not be immediately known because tests which can confirm the virus usually take four days.

Parents were also advised by health officers that they should not use the services of private institutions to confirm the virus, but the public health facilities which are authorised to do testing.

The ministry assured parents that it had the situation at the school under control.

In the meantime, nurses will continue to visit the school on a daily basis to monitor pupils’ health at the school.