The Ministry of Education said Friday that a decision by the Parents' Council of the Ussishkin School in Tel Aviv not to send children to school because of what they believed to be a mass outbreak of the swine flu was a symptom of “hysteria.” The flu which infected many of the pupils and staff was apparently a “regular” strain and not the swine flu.
Rami Sadan, a media adviser who specializes in the world of medicine told Arutz Sheva that the Ministry of Health was unsuccessful in containing the unnecessary panic over the disease. “The Ministry of Health made an effort to explain to people how to deal with the situation in order not to come down with flu, but it did not succeed in defeating the panic,” he explained.
Hundreds of people die of regular flu every year, Sadan said, but it never caused as much panic as the swine flu has. “Swine flu is [just] another form of flu, although it does have a high degree of risk, but we must keep in mind that since the disease was discovered, 40,000 people have come down with it but only a few have died, less than one percent,” he calmed listeners.
It is possible that the students at Ussishkin came down with regular flu, “but the hysteria that resulted caused the entire thing to be blown out of proportion,” he said. “We must not create panic among the public,” he warned, suggesting that the government and the media could do more on this score.