.jpg)
Taojiang No. 1 High School in central China's Hunan province, where seven health and education officials in the Taojiang county government have been fired for dereliction of duty for trying to coverup a tuberculosis outbreak.
Li Fei
Health and education officials in the central Chinese province of Hunan have been strongly criticized over their handling of an outbreak of tuberculosis in high schools.
Authorities have confirmed 29 cases of TB involving students at secondary schools in Hunan's Taojiang county since last August, while 38 students were offered preventive treatment.
The government's management of the epidemic has been strongly criticized by parents and commentators, and seven health and education officials in the county government have been fired for dereliction of duty in the ensuing probe.
But parents say there are other issues with the government's handling of the crisis, citing official failure to report infections in the Taojiang No. 1 High School as an example.
Students diagnosed with the illness were told to resume their studies, and went on to infect dozens of their classmates, according to online commentator Li Fei, who cited interviews with their parents.
Parents of students at other schools said the school authorities there had deliberately concealed the epidemic and forced infected students to keep coming to class, in an apparent bid to maintain the school's position in the college entrance exam results table.
"The authorities only reported the epidemic selectively," Li told RFA. "I think local officials are trying to avoid responsibility."
"They deliberately concealed the epidemic, and this improper handling of the situation fueled the spread of the epidemic," he said.
Parents who complained to the county government education bureau had been harassed by officials, he said.
"Local officials are now very nervous, because I have been writing about this for a couple of weeks now, and they have been going to schools to threaten and intimidate parents," Li said. "Because of this, parents are now reluctant to give interviews."
'A serious failure by the government'
Repeated calls to the Taojiang No. 1 High School rang unanswered during office hours on Friday.
Chen Bingzhong, a former director of the China Institute of Health Education, said that early reporting of a TB outbreak is crucial to containing it.
"It is possible to die of TB, either directly from the disease itself, from complications, or even from sepsis," Chen said. "But patients don't die if they receive timely treatment."
"It's not a hard disease to treat, but the crucial thing is whether the authorities take it seriously," he said. "If patients are placed in isolation, the disease can't cause so many infections."
"This is a serious failure by the government, and those responsible should be held to account."
Calls to the Taojiang county government offices and to the county education bureau rang unanswered during office hours on Friday.
An official who answered the phone at the county health bureau referred inquiries to the propaganda department of the Taojiang party committee.
Meanwhile, students with TB were barred from a pre-college health examination if they had missed the college entrance examinations last week due to health problems, parents said.
"Some of our kids are still sick, and in a very bad way, with very poor health," a parent of a Taojiang high school student who asked to remain anonymous said. "But my daughter wasn't allowed to go in for her medical examination."
Parents who showed up at the Taojiang No. 4 High School on Thursday said that only the TB patients who had already sat the gaokao exam would be given medical checks.
One parent said the government is also placing more bureaucratic hurdles in the way of parents who try to take advantage of a promise to waive repeat-year tuition and issue a monthly allowance for TB-infected students.
Many of the students infected last year have yet to recover from the disease, parents told RFA.
