SUBANG JAYA, April 23 — A school in Putra Heights, Subang Jaya, reopens today after it was closed when a student was infected by the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD).

Kingsley International School principal Ellis S.P. Lee said a six-year-old girl, who was ill when she came to school on Monday, had been confirmed to have HFMD. The girl is quarantined at home and is being monitored.

“She came to school with fever on Monday morning without signs of HFMD. We took her to our clinic to have her checked and sent her home since she was lethargic,” Lee said.

She said the school checked the students’ temperature daily.

“Later that night, the parent called me and said the child had HFMD. I immediately sent an email via our parent-teacher portal informing all parents the school would be closed for the next two days,” she said.

The school, located in a shop lot area, was closed on Tuesday and yesterday for sanitisation and cleaning work.

Lee said she was not willing to risk her students’ health after one of them had contracted the disease. She said the school was proactive in ensuring the environment was clean.

“This is the first case that we are experiencing and it is extra work for the teachers since they have to follow up with the parents on their children at home on whether they are doing their homework or not,” Lee said.

“Even though we shut down the school, the staff continued to work and our students carried on with their lessons from home as we did not want to lose time.”

Lee said the school played its role as part of the community to ensure its students did not contract the disease.

She said although it was highly unlikely the student had contracted the disease from school, it was important the welfare of the other students was looked after.

“The school had just reopened after the term break so the student may have contracted the disease somewhere else. This is a contagious disease. We even provide sanitizers in every classroom to promote the practice of hygiene and cleanliness,” she said.

Selangor Health director Dr S. Balachandran said he would provide details about the school’s closure and statistics on HFMD in the state today.

On April 11, a Year One student at SJKC Chien Chi in Plentong, Johor Baru, suspected of contracting HFMD, died.

The Johor Health and Environment Committee said, however, the case could not have been associated with HFMD as tests on her blood samples showed no strains of the Enterovirus 71 (EV71), which causes HFMD.

Although the common strain found in HFMD disease is the Coxsackievirus A16, certain outbreaks of HFMD caused by EV71 have been associated with neurological complications and significant mortality.

The last major outbreak of EV71 in the country occurred in Sarawak in 2006 with more than 8,000 children infected and six deaths. The virus is said to have emerged in Malaysia in 1997 when it claimed the lives of 41 children.

The EV71 virus is also said to be active every two to three years.