Britain reacted coolly on Tuesday to a study suggesting that the swine flu pandemic could be curbed by up to 40% by closing schools beyond September, when the virus is expected to surge.
Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson said school closures — suggested by experts in The Lancet medical journal — would be ”extremely disruptive”, noting that it hadn’t worked when tried locally already.
”I think it would take a lot for us to move in that direction, it would be extremely disruptive to society. When would you open them again, given that flu might be around for several months?” he told GMTV television.
British schools have just broken up for the summer holidays, and usually reopen from the start of September.
Donaldson noted that school closures had already been tried in central England — an area hit hard by the virus which has so far killed at least 29 people in Britain, the highest toll in Europe — and had failed.
”If we look at what we did in the West Midlands for example, where we did very aggressively initially close schools, treat people with Tamiflu who didn’t have symptoms but were contacts of cases, eventually it broke out of the box and spread more widely.
”I think we will obviously keep all of these things under review, as we do with any scientific advice, but at the moment I think it is unlikely,” he said.
The Lancet study, by doctors from Imperial College London, said keeping schoolchildren at home could in some circumstances be effective against the spread of swine flu.
Countries in Europe and North America could be advised to take a look at their policies in the northern hemisphere autumn, it said.
”In an optimistic scenario, closure of schools during a pandemic might have some effect on the total number of cases (maybe a 15% reduction) but cause larger reductions (around 40%) in peak attack rates,” it said.
”However, this reduction will be substantially undermined if children are not sufficiently isolated or if the policy is not well implemented.”
It added that there were ”still many uncertainties” about the implications of school closure.
But it added: ”The H1N1 pandemic could become more severe, and so the current cautious approach of not necessarily recommending school closure in Europe and North America might need reappraisal in the autumn.” — Sapa-AFP