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Despite pressures mounted by some parents and stakeholders to shut down Queens College, Yaba, over an alleged outbreak of an epidemic, the Federal Government gave the college green light for academic activities to continue.
Following the reported outbreak of another epidemic in Queen’s College, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Sonny Echono visited the college to access the situation.
Before his visit, the Parent-Teacher Association of the college and some stakeholders had mounted pressure on the principal to close the school to avert the 2017 outbreak of Cholera that led to the death of three students.
Daily Sun gathered that having gone round the college, particularly the health centre, the permanent secretary gave the school a clean bill of health and the pressure for the institution to be closed died down.
A source told our correspondent that the permanent secretary went round and saw things for himself and was convinced that the students had flu and malaria, which is affecting many people because of the weather.
The source further explained that the health experts from the Lagos State government visited and discovered that the alarm raised of another epidemic was unfounded. He said after the false alarm, the college has been running and some students affected are back.
Reacting to the alleged outbreak of an epidemic, Mr. Tunde Adekola, parent of an SS 11 student acknowledged that there were reported cases of students falling ill but what is untrue is the fact that it is an epidemic.
His words: ‘’Clearly, what has happened is that there have been cases of malaria, students having fever and of course flu, which as I am talking to you now, I am affected. So, most of the reported cases of an outbreak of epidemic are a fabricated and outright falsehood.
“I am just coming from the clinic as I have been there since morning just to monitor things. The Lagos State government team of health experts too have been there to see things for themselves, based on the false alarm raised by the PTA of the college.
“Now, what has been discovered so far is flu, which tends to spread fast because of the boarding house system. My daughter also suffered from the same flu, she came home, was treated and she has since returned to school.
“I want to say this without fear of contradiction, that to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing related to food or water disease as is being speculated that happened in the college in 2017
“I was here when the team of Lagos health experts came to investigate and listened to them and what they mentioned was a presentation of symptoms of flu and fever so my take to the claims of the PTA which I belong to is this, it is true that they were elected to represent us but I want to let you know that majority of the parents are not in the know on their position over this issue or steps they have taken. It is coming to us as a shock, reading on the pages of the newspapers, all what they have been saying concerning this development.
“When you say 700 to 900 to 1000 students have vacated the college on account of such alleged outbreak, I cannot find that to be true,” he said.
