Thiruvananthapuram, June 19: Five HIV-positive orphans readmitted to school six months after their expulsion were sent back today, apparently because of “fever”.

The children, one boy and four girls aged between five and 11, began attending classes only yesterday at the state-aided Mar Dionysius Primary School in Kottayam’s Pambady.

This morning, they wore a scowl as they were packed off to the Asha Kiran orphanage.

Principal Elsamma Mani insisted that they were “looking feverish”. She said the locality was in the grip of fever and “it was not ideal” to keep them in school.

The children were thrown out last December after their participation at an event to mark World AIDS Day made their HIV status public.

Today’s turn of events did not end with the kids being sent away from school. At the orphanage, they were told not to talk to the media.

The state AIDS control society and the orphanage authorities, who have imposed the curbs, said any association with the media could “harm their prospects”.

A message on the orphanage notice board said the children should not be “overexposed” to the media and their pictures with schoolmates could upset parents. The orphanage authorities did not comment.

The principal has a tough job at hand. She must observe the government order that forbids segregation of HIV-positive children as well as guard against a possible exodus of other children.

Although parents have threatened to withdraw their children, no student has left the school so far.

The school had 65 students on its rolls last year. The number is down to 50. This includes new admissions and promotion of 24 students to the upper-primary level.

Mani is confident of convincing the parents, most of them casual labourers, that the virus is not spread by touching or sharing the same bench.

After the five were forced out last year, school authorities had parroted the usual explanation. “Other parents will pull out their wards if the HIV-positive children are allowed to remain in the school and mingle freely with the rest,” an official had said.