One of my (kiddy) students has caught condylomata, a nasty venereal disease which causes cauliflower - like warts on his hands and, erm, other places.
He somehow passed it to another student as well.
I’ve done some homework and it says some strains of this can be passed by touching other people with the disease and then rubbing your eyes or putting your fingers in your mouth or touching your wotsits when spending a penny.
I’m slightly worried, for obvious reasons, and am thinking about staying away from the school.
The boss hasn’t informed the parents and when I found out earlier today, I refrained from touching door handles, students and staff and then I went home and took a shower in the strongest detergent I could find.
Surely the school should be erm…I can’t think of the word right now…be sprayed down with a chemical to kill any offending bacteria?
How do you know it’s the genital condylomata and not just regular warts that at least half of us have at some stage of our lives (usually in childhood)? I don’t think it’s possible to spread the genital form so easily.
I wouldn’t worry all that much if I was you, - warts come and go, most people have some sort of papilloma virus in their blood, it might never show if they have a strong immune system.
I’d get the kid kicked out until its cleared up. Or wear some gloves…
FYI the term STD has been dropped, and replaced with STI. :loco: ‘Infections,’ it would appear, are now more PC than ‘diseases.’ I’m not making this up.
“Did you hear? In America they’ve reclassified cancer as an infection not a disease! Isn’t that great!?”
“Jeez! That’s fuckin’ awesome! That means I can die of an “infection” and not a “disease”! Fucking A! All righty!”
“Yeah! That’ll be really relevant to all the millions around the world dying every day from things that used to be called ‘diseases’ ! Now they can die of ‘infections’ instead!”
“Fuck, they are going to be so thrilled when they hear about this one!”
Thanks for bringing the latest PC lunacy to our attention there Tom. It never ceases to amaze me.
If the boss won’t do anything, I’d report it to the Health Department myself … and speak to someone in social services about how this kid got genital warts from his older brother. Something sounds very bizarre here, and I think this is one of those cases where you might want to by-pass your prick of a boss who doesn’t care about the safety of his children (the reason he won’t report it is because the school will be forced to shut down if there are a certain number of cases … and/or he doesn’t want the authorities coming to his school for some reason). It could cost you your job, but that could turn into a real problem if something’s not done about it. Perhaps tell your boss first that if he doesn’t report it, you will be forced to and see what his reaction is. Back in the days when I was teaching English at a kindy, there were several cases of foot & mouth disease which should have been reported and weren’t because the school would have been shut down for 2 weeks and the boss would have lost too much money. Always putting money ahead of one’s health …
I thought he was quite a good boss, but now my opinion is changing. He seems to be a dick head and can’t see further than the $$$$$$$$$$$.
[quote=“Tom Hill”]I’d get the kid kicked out until its cleared up. Or wear some gloves…
[/quote]
He’s in hospital at the moment until it gets sorted out.
You only mentioned this because you know I hate this kind of thing, didn’t you?
I think something is a-miss about the older brother thing. It could easily be a simple innocent transmission as another student in the school has caught the disease and they obviously weren’t doing anything untoward.
I think this is the most realistic course of action.
if you’re in taipei, write to the mayor’s mailbox, in cogent english. don’t worry about comprehension levels, theres ppl there to take care of that. the health dept/dept of education would probably have a field day with this.
According to the National Institute of Health’s website, genital warts are spread through sexual contact. It doesn’t mention any other means of transmission. Not to overreact or anything, but it’s always possible that the boy was showing the other boy what his big brother was “teaching” him … or they were playing “grab each other’s willy” (kids will be kids). I dunno … it just sounds really fishy to me, and if there’s even the chance of some kind of sexual abuse going on, the authorities need to be contacted, and your boss needs to be MADE to understand this. Let us know how it turns out!
I suppose it is possible to have regular children’s warts on genitals but genital warts on hands doesn’t sound very likely to me either.
Anyhow, papilloma virus has many many different types and most of them are quite harmless. Usually they disappear as the kid grows older and his/her immune system gets stronger. Adults hardly ever have visible warts although there are very often papilloma viruses found in their blood. Not a big deal.
[quote=“Notsu”]I suppose it is possible to have regular children’s warts on genitals but genital warts on hands doesn’t sound very likely to me either.
Anyhow, papilloma virus has many many different types and most of them are quite harmless. Usually they disappear as the kid grows older and his/her immune system gets stronger. Adults hardly ever have visible warts although there are very often papilloma viruses found in their blood. Not a big deal.[/quote]
if an outbreak occurs(a cluster of 3 or more) then both centers for disease control(taipei and the big one under the central govt) will take a keen interest in your school’s situation. hopefully everything is already under control, with the kid under observation at the hospital and away from his classmates. its up to you if u want to stir the pot with accusations of child abuse(dept of social services is good at this), while its better to be careful and err on the side of suggesting an investigation, such accusations can be quite embarassing and damaging if proven false…u may risk losing ur job indirectly due to parental pressure…
I think the other posters are correct. You need to do something. I’m sure the parents of the not yet infected children would be grateful. Talk to your boss. If he still doesn’t do anything, then contact someone in the government.
For the meantime, don’t be upset if I only talk to you from a distance at school - the other school.
Always putting money ahead of one’s health …