Afghanistan on Sunday ordered the closure of all schools for three weeks after recording its first death from swine flu, the country's education minister said.

"In order to safeguard the health of all Afghans... all public and private schools will be shut for three weeks" from Monday, Farouq Wardak said in a statement.

The move comes after an engineer from Kabul last week became the first Afghan to die of the (A)H1N1 virus.

There are about 7.5 million students and teachers in Afghanistan, the statement said.



Agencies