A school has today sent home three pupils in a coronavirus alert.

The youngsters, from Sir Roger Manwood's School in Sandwich, had recently returned from a trip to northern Italy, which has been severely affected by the outbreak.

And as a separate precaution the school has cancelled exchange visits to China this summer.

The plan at present is to keep the children who returned from Italy at home for 14 days, on standard advice from Public Health England.

They had been there during last week's half term holiday and said they were beginning to feel what seemed to be mild flu-like symptoms.

The grammar school's headmaster, Lee Hunter, has written to parents today saying the three children had not been in one of the 11 Italian lockdown zones.

He told Kent Online: "The pupils that we sent home this morning were all on the same non-school trip.

"We did this as a precautionary measure as we were following the Public Heath England advice that had been sent to all schools in the country.

"We have been in contact with PHE this afternoon to clarify exactly what 'mild symptoms' means and as a result of that it could be that the pupils might be coming back - we need to talk to their parents to establish if they have the more exact symptoms now given to us by PHE."

Mr Hunter added the school today also cancelled an annual Sixth From trip this July to a school it is twinned with in China.

A visit by the pupils' Chinese counterparts to Kent in June is also off.

This is even though the school is not in Hubei Province, where where the coronavirus first broke out.

This strain, which has since spread globally, is now formally named as COVID-19.

The British Department for Education has given schools specific instructions as to how to prepare for and guard against the illness.

It says if people have returned from specific parts of the world since February 19 they should stay indoors and avoid contact with others even if they have no symptoms.

These include the areas of Italy currently in lockdown - including Codogno, Castiglione d'Adda, Casalpusterlengo, Fombio, Maleo, Somaglia, Bertonico, Terranova dei Passerini, Castelgerundo and San Fiorano and Vo.

Those who have a cough, or fever or shortness of breath and have visited places such as China, Thailand, and Japan should stay indoors and call NHS 111 about their recent travel.

In recent days parents at a Sittingbourne primary threatened to keep children away after a staff member's trip to Singapore, pupils at a Medway grammar were offered health advice after travelling to Italy and three teachers at a Walderslade school began self-isolating after travelling to Venice.

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