TWO miners are among the 13 new cases of people who have been quarantined at Luanshya Hospital after contracting suspected swine flu, the hospital authorities have said.

And Ndola District Commissioner (DC) Moses Mumba said 33 out of the 106 pupils quarantined at Ndola Girls National Technical High School were yesterday discharged while five were admitted after being diagnosed with the disease.

Luanshya Hospital chief medical officer, Boniface Zulu said in an interview yesterday that several miners had received treatment after being diagnosed with the flu-like disease.

He said the number of adults seeking treatment after showing signs of the flu-like disease was on an increase although most of the patients were pupils.

“The latest information which I have is that we have admitted 13 people and discharged 14 although the number of children and adult receiving treatment has continued growing,” Dr Zulu said.

Mr Mumba said the fact that the number of those being discharged was increasing, was an indication that the efforts to stop the spread of the disease was being done by a team of health personnel camping at the boarding school which has a student population of 400, situated on the outskirts of Ndola near the crash site of former United Nations (UN) secretary general Dag Hammarskjoeld.

Meanwhile, teachers at Chiwala Boys Technical High School have accused some pupils, who were scared of the end of year examination of spreading rumours that the flu had broken out at school.

The teachers said some pupils had been sending message to their parents suggesting that they should be picked from school because they was an out break of the suspected swine flu.

Chiwala Technical High School headteacher, Fightwell Mutambo said his school had not yet been affected by the flu-like disease and urged parents not to panic.

In Kitwe, twelve students at the Kitwe College of Education were treated and isolated after exhibiting swine flu-like symptoms on Monday.

Health officials, who visited the institution after the matter was reported, quarantined the twelve students.

The twelve students showed signs of a severe flu, with two of them appearing to be in a critical condition.

College officials said of the twelve, six were females and that the group had been quarantined in one of the classrooms at the institutions.

They said of the twelve, only five were still under quarantine as the rest had been released.

When contacted, district health director, Chikafuna Banda referred all queries to Ministry of Health spokesperson Rueben Mbewe, who said he had not yet received a report on the matter.

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