BACOLOD CITY, Philippines—The University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos suspended classes at all levels Friday afternoon after 168 students showed flu-like symptoms.

Carlos Legaspi, UNO-R director of student affairs, said most of the stricken students were in the high school level, although some elementary pupils and college students were also affected, he said.

The large number of illnesses and the rapid increase prompted school authorities to send students home Friday afternoon and to suspend classes until July 9 as a precautionary measure, he said.

The school premises will be disinfected while the students are away, he added.

But he stressed there were no confirmed Influenza A(H1N1) cases at UNO-R, which has a total of 6,500 students from preschool to college.

Last Monday, 135 students of St. John’s Institute in Bacolod City also developed flu, prompting school authorities to suspend all classes on Tuesday.

Health authorities said most of the affected SJI students have recovered.

The 1,410 SJI students are expected to return to school on Monday.

Classes at the Science Elementary School in Bais City in Negros Oriental have also been suspended since Tuesday after several of its students reportedly exhibited symptoms of the H1N1 flu.

This is the first school which suspended its classes in Negros Oriental because of possible H1N1 infection.

Bais Mayor Hector Villanueva ordered the suspension of classes and directed a cleanup of the entire building.

Dr. Socrates Villamor, head of the DOH in Negros Oriental, said the DOH collected five random swab samples from the children and sent them to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa via the government-run Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City for testing.

“This will take a long time because until now, we are still awaiting the results of the samples we sent them two weeks ago,” Villamor said.

The RITM is swamped with requests for testing from all over the country.

Villanueva, meanwhile, said he has ordered an investigation to determine if school officials were negligent in handling the viral spread.

“I have been informed that some of the children had been reporting for school even though they had been sick for several days,” Villanueva said.

Villanueva said he would file administrative cases against school officials proven to have been negligent.

Villanueva said that of all the grade levels at the Bais City Science Elementary School, only the third grade pupils did not show flu-like symptoms while there were one or two cases in each of the other grades.

Dumaguete City had one confirmed case of H1N1 but the patient recovered two weeks ago, Villamor said.