The Hong Kong’s government ordered more than half a million primary and kindergarten students Wednesday to stay home for two weeks because of a deadly flu outbreak.

The government also asked one of the territory’s top scientists to investigate the deaths of three children. According to the World Health Organization, only two of the children tested positive for the flu, and both had other diseases as well.

The government’s decision to close the schools brought back memories of 2003, when an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory hit Hong Kong. SARS affected more than 8,000 people between November 2002 and July 2003 in what the World Health Organization deemed a “global threat.” Nearly 800 of those who contracted the disease died from it.

The flu outbreak was not associated with the bird flu. According to Health Secretary York Chow, the schools were closed because the number of young children being infected seemed higher this year.

“Our main concern is the infection of young children. The percentage of young children getting influenza this season seems to be higher. The second is the mortality…if there’re two deaths related to flu even before the peak, then we need to do something to minimize the numbers in the weeks to come,” York said at a press briefing, Reuters reports.

Health experts say there was no reason for people to panic. “This year, there seem to be slightly more flu cases. But from what I can see, we get a bad flu year every few years. I don’t think it is very unusual or different from previous years,” Leo Poon, a virologist from the University of Hong Kong said, according to the same source.

Public hospitals have been experiencing a prolonged increase in emergency demand lately, in particular the emergency medical admissions, HA Chief Executive Shane Solomon told the media during a visit to the North District Hospital Wednesday afternoon.

“Compared with February last year, the daily number of emergency medical admissions is 16 percent higher. At the same time, recent admission to pediatric wards in public hospitals has also surged,” he said.

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