Several children are missing school with complaints of fever, body ache, cough and cold, several principals said.

Those who are turning up with a temperature are being sent home.

The number of children reporting to the infirmary has gone up significantly in the last few days, a principal said.

“There have been children in the past few days who are missing school because they are suffering from fever with cough and cold. The number of absentees is more than usual,” said Amita Prasad, director, Indus Valley World School.

At Mahadevi Birla World Academy, at least a couple of children across classes are being sent home every day because they reported to school with fever.

“If they come to school with a temperature we call the parents and send them back home. There is a tendency among parents to send children to school even if they are unwell when there is a test or an exam,” said Nupur Ghosh, vice-principal, Mahadevi Birla World Academy.

In primary classes, a test is followed by a regular day timetable, said Ghosh.

“If they report to the infirmary or go back home after writing a test, we cancel the test in primary classes. We want to discourage parents from sending children to school even if there is a test because that causes more exhaustion for the child,” she said.

Apurba Ghosh, director of the Institute of Child Health, said 40 per cent of the patients he has been seeing in the past few days are those with complaints of fever, cough, cold, and respiratory tract infection.

“Most of them are in the age group of two to 12 years and they are recovering within five to seven days. It is advisable to keep them at home during this period and not send them to school,” he said.

“There are also some instances of the hand-foot-mouth disease where the symptoms are skin rashes, mouth sores and fever.”

The Heritage School has issued a circular to parents regarding hand-foot-and-mouth disease and asked them not to send children with symptoms to school.

“We advised parents to be vigilant of the symptoms and not to send their children to school if they have hand-foot-and-mouth disease because it is contagious and can affect other children,” said Seema Sapru, principal, The Heritage School.

The advisory mentions children can be sent to school when they have “no fever, feel well enough to participate in class and have no uncontrolled drooling with mouth sores”.

At St Augustine’s Day School Shyamnagar, 15 to 20 children have been reporting to the infirmary in the past few days, with complaints of fever, a feeling of giddiness and body ache.

“It is an unusual number,” said Rodney Borneo, principal of the school.

July is also when schools organise inter-house activities or fests.

Senior students who had signed up for various activities have had to back out and teachers have been looking for replacements, said Prasad.

Teachers are also falling sick and schools are having to arrange for substitutes.

The problem with substitution is that in senior classes, curriculum transaction gets impacted, said a principal.

“We find it more difficult if multiple pre-primary teachers are absent because senior school teachers are not trained to handle them and the little ones get hassled with unfamiliar faces,” said Prasad.