Greenbay Primary Free of Pollutants

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Education

Wednesday, 13 March 2013 02:30

By Delana Isles

Antigua St. John's - Dusty walls and dirty classrooms could have contributed to the outbreak of illness among faculty and students of the Greenbay Primary School earlier this month.

This is according to Chief Health Inspector (CHI), Lionel Michael, who also reported that no other cases of illness have been recorded.

Michael told Caribarena that the findings of the tests carried out have not uncovered any environmental pollutants.

“We have not found anything that was causing problems to the students, there was no release of chemicals, toxic substances, there was no odour, there were no pollutants in the immediate school area, there was nobody burning anything in the immediate school area, there were no environmental pollutants anywhere in the vicinity of the school that could have been attributed to the illness,” the Chief Health Inspector reported.

Nevertheless, he added, they did find that the school was very dusty.

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“We have eliminated any possibility of an environmental cause,” the Chief Health Inspector said. “There was an accumulation of dust in the classrooms and the room where the children purportedly ate in. So we carried out an extensive cleaning of all the classrooms, power washed them and dusted down the walls, the ceilings, the windows, everything.”

Asked about continued monitoring to ensure no future outbreaks, he said that the board of education and the Ministry of Health have already renovated some of the bathrooms and are continuing to work on the others which were not operational.

Questioned about the cleaning of other schools to prevent similar incidents, Michael said, “We may follow-up on other schools to ensure that the classrooms are clean and free from dust and dirt and so on, because what we found is that the classrooms are not properly cleaned of dust and cobwebs and you can have all kinds of reactions to dust and cobwebs.”

The Greenbay Primary school remains open following two closures on separate occasions earlier this month, as a result of several students and teachers complaining of dizziness, nausea, vomiting and hyperventilation. Several students reportedly lost consciousness.

Ministry officials were called in and the situation is being addressed.  

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