School officials in eastern China found responsible for a swine flu outbreak at a provincial high school that led to 109 students being infected will be severely punished, a local official said.
Classes have been suspended for students at the No. 3 Senior High School in Xin'an County in Henan province since last Thursday when the first swine flu patient from the school was reported, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Tuesday night.
An initial investigation showed that school officials failed to test students' temperatures before the first classes of the fall term started, as is required at all schools in the province, Xinhua cited Jiang Duyun, director of the province's education department, as saying.
China has acted aggressively to detect and contain swine flu cases after being accused of failing to move quickly enough to stop the 2003 outbreak of SARS.
The Health Ministry says that 1,852 cases of swine flu have been reported around the country. None has been fatal.
AP