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AN international school in neighbouring Saudi Arabia has been closed by the government after 20 students were diagnosed with swine flu.
A health ministry official contacted by news agencies would not identify the school, only saying that it was in Riyadh and served people from an East Asian country.
Riyadh has several schools serving the children of hundreds of thousands of workers from Asia, mainly the Philippines and Indonesia.
The school outbreak and 12 other newly-diagnosed cases pushed the total for Saudi Arabia to 216, less than six weeks after the first case was detected. All of the victims so far have survived.
The school closure came as the government stepped up surveillance and education activities for the H1N1 flu, such as sending out millions of text messages to mobile users and asking preachers in mosques to help raise awareness.
Riyadh is especially concerned about the swine flu with upwards of two million people expected to arrive over the next five months on pilgrimages to the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
The new H1N1 influenza virus bears a disturbing resemblance to the virus strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, with a greater ability to infect the lungs than common seasonal flu viruses, researchers have reported.
