Health officials investigating a “mysterious virus” that struck 116 school pupils and seven teachers at a school complex in the southern Makkah town of Yilamlam on Saturday have declared the outbreak “nothing but a case of the common cold”.
Ahmad Hussein, spokesman for Makkah Health Affairs, said that a team of medics had been sent to Yilamlam after the reports of numerous pupils suffering from a high fever, and that 37 boys and six girls were admitted to the local healthcare center.
“They had high temperatures and coughs, and were given sick leave from school,” Hussein said. “Tests later showed that they were suffering from nothing other than a common cold due to a change in the weather.” The health situation in the region, he added, was “stable”, and local people’s fears over the virus were unfounded.
More than 150 pupils and eight teachers remained absent from the Yilamlam school complex on Sunday, the day after the illness struck, while those who did attend wore protective face masks.
Sources said that education and health authorities, who were on Saturday considering temporarily closing the complex while the illness remained unidentified, said Sunday that classes would now continue as normal unless ordered otherwise by the Ministry of Education.
Saudi Gazette