Mass Hysteria Recurs At Lempu JSS
Pini Bothoko | Monday January 20, 2020 15:53
Last March, residents of the tiny village were left traumatised, after close to 150 boarders at the school were hit by a rare condition that caused the students to exhibit wobbliness while walking.
The whole of last year, the school management, parents were struggling to fight the disease but to date the scourge still persists with 10 reported recurring cases since schools opened last Tuesday. Public relations officer at the Ministry of Basic Education, Oarabile Phefo told The Monitor that the school has re-opened for a new year, but some of the students still showed signs of the disease.
“They started to show the signs on Wednesday and by Friday there were 10 affected students. The 10 students were amongst the 92 students who dropped out from school last year due to this rare disease,” Phefo said.
Phefo stated that out of the 92 students who dropped from school last year, 75 of them managed to come back while 17 did not report back to school.
He added that they were yet to follow and trace those students, establish their whereabouts and why they did not report back to school. Phefo said early this month, the Ministry contacted parents and made them aware of their new measures in which they had suggested to relocate the affected students to some boarding schools, but they declined.
“We had suggested a change of environment for the learners, but their parents declined stating that Lempu JSS is near their villages. The affected boarding students are from Khudumelapye, Serilatholo, Kaudwane and surrounding cattle posts in the outskirts of Salajwe village. Parents said they could monitor and visit their children more often if they are in Salajwe village unlike other areas,” Phefo added.
He said as it was planned in 2019, the affected students are repeating their last year classes because they had missed a lot to continue to the next level. This year, the school admitted 240 Form 1 learners compared to last year’s 307.
He said they had reserved spaces across all levels for the affected learners in order for them to repeat last year’s classes.
“This year’s intake was reduced deliberately to accommodate the affected learners as they are repeating their classes. We are currently observing the affected learners but we are yet to revisit our suggestion as we are optimistic that change of environment can be an answer to the current situation,” Phefo said. He said the recent affected students came back to school although they were not fit hence the re-occurrence.
Once asked about the disease and the possibility for it to re-occur, Scottish Livingstone Hospital Superintendent, Dr Kunal Rose once admitted that there is a possibility for the disease’s reoccurrence.