New scare for Lam Tin school after Sars

First it was Sars; now, anthrax has cast a shadow over the young students of Creative Kindergarten and Day Nursery in Lam Tin.

Masked, bewildered and too young to understand what is going on, the children looked out of windows on a wet day, intrigued by a throng of reporters and photographers eager to get parents' reaction to news of the death of a two-year-old student from anthrax.

On Tuesday night, officials from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department disinfected the kindergarten, which has about 520 students, after it was confirmed the boy had died from anthrax.

The school issued notices to parents yesterday, saying that it was sorry about the death. It also said it believed the boy was not infected at the kindergarten and urged parents to remain calm.

Late yesterday, health officials met parents and teachers to inform them about the issue. A Department of Health spokesman said environmental and food samples had been taken from the school to help trace the source of the infection.

Most parents who dropped their children at the kindergarten door yesterday said they were not worried. The exception was Filipino domestic helper, Connie Sencho, who, on receiving a call from her employer, immediately took her three-year-old charge home to Tseung Kwan O, the same area where the young anthrax victim lived. 'She [the employer] was afraid of infection. She only found out the news this morning,' Ms Sencho said.

One mother, Canna Chiu Chan Kit-ching, 40, said she was not worried about sending her three-year-old to the school.