By Jessica Jaganathan

ALL first-year students and several staff members of Republic Polytechnic have been told to stay away for seven days from today, after nine cases of H1N1 were confirmed there.

The move affects 4,500 students and 16 teachers and makes the polytechnic the first to adopt Ministry of Education measures aimed at preventing mass local transmission of the flu virus.

After two sick students surfaced at the Woodlands polytechnic on Monday, their classmates and teachers were told to stay away. Three classrooms were shut and thoroughly disinfected.

By yesterday, seven more students had contracted H1N1, prompting the polytechnic to go a step further.

Classmates of those with H1N1 have been told to stay at home. All other first-year students have been told only to stay away from school, said the polytechnic.

It explained that keeping the students away was an added precaution to prevent the virus spreading. But it urged students to practise social responsibility.

E-learning lessons will be conducted for the affected students, and they will be asked to hand in assignments online. If the situation improves, everyone will return to school next Thursday.

Unaffected staff and students will have to check their temperature twice daily and declare the readings online.

Mass gatherings have been scaled down, and students have been reminded to be 'vigilant and to behave in a socially responsible manner'.

The polytechnic's move came as another 26 new H1N1 cases were confirmed here yesterday, raising the total to 220.

The community clusters of infections have also grown: Two more patrons of the nightspot Butter Factory were confirmed with H1N1, bringing the total infected there to 11. The popular club is closed until July 1.

The Ministry of Defence has also taken steps to stem the spread of H1N1 after five more servicemen at Maju camp, off Clementi Road, were affected. In all, seven soldiers from the camp have caught the virus.

Mindef's measures include separating critical operating units from others to reduce the risk of infection, getting national servicemen to check their temperature daily, and segregating units with flu victims.

There was more sober news from infectious diseases specialist and head of the Communicable Disease Centre, Associate Professor Leo Yee Sin, who expects H1N1 infections here to escalate.

She said H1N1 is one hard virus to spot, and doctors may miss as many as one in five of those infected.

The CDC's examination of the first 50 H1N1 patients here showed that not everyone gets a high fever, and some have only mild symptoms while infectious.

They may display other symptoms - runny nose, sore throat, cough and headache, among others - all very similar to symptoms of ordinary seasonal flu.

But the good news is that most of those warded get well within days.

With the mid-year school holiday drawing to an end, many families returning from vacations in flu-hit areas were surprised to learn yesterday of the new H1N1 measures put in place for schools.

The empty classrooms at Republic Polytechnic may well prove to be the first of more H1N1 disruptions to come when schools re-open next week.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.