COVID-19: School staff infected by virus in Mecca

Cairo: Five school staff in the Saudi holy city of Mecca have caught the coronavirus, according to a media report, as the kingdom continues to battle to stem the potentially fatal virus.

The five are the principal of the high school, his deputy, a student guide, a lab specialist and an administrative employee, the Saudi online newspaper Sabq reported, citing unidentified sources.

The infection started last week after the school deputy head felt some symptoms of COVID-19 and later tested positive for the disease. Soon, his colleagues displayed the virus symptoms and tested positive, too.

Other administrative staff at the school, who came in contact with their ill colleagues, will undergo virus tests.

This week, Mecca education authorities closed a primary school after one of its administrative staff tested positive for COVID-19, according to Sabq.

Earlier this week, the school year started in Saudi Arabia with students staying away from classrooms, depending instead on distance-learning programmes for the first seven weeks as a precautionary measure to contain the virus.

Administrative employees have reported back to schools.

All educational institutions were shut down in the kingdom last March as part of a raft of stringent measures against the COVID-19 outbreak.

Saudi Arabia so far has recorded overall 315,772 virus cases and 3,897 related deaths.