The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has defended its decision not to advise a Lambeth special needs school to close despite two children from there dying after contracting swine flu.
A girl, nine, and another child, whose details have not been released, who both had underlying health problems, attended the Livity School in Brixton Hill.
Some critics have said a school where so many children had underlying health problems should not have risked the chance of disease spreading between the pupils by staying open.
But a HPA spokeswoman said closing the school would not have prevented the children from contracting swine flu.
She said: “The children at the school have so much contact with their local communities, closing the school where they go would not have prevented them catching the disease.”
Lambeth Council and the school took the decision to finally close the school on Friday, to allow students to mourn their dead schoolmates.
The council said advice from the HPA was that schools were now to remove students who were showing symptoms iof swine flu but would remain open.
Livity School headteacher Geraldine Lee paid tribute to the pupils who died.
She said: "We have a close bond with all our pupils and their families and we are devastated by this sad news.”
She said representatives from the school had personally updated all parents on the situation, and were giving them all the support possible.
She said public health experts at the HPA, along with GPs, had taken the lead to assess pupils with flu symptoms and treat where appropriate.
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