Progress has been made in finding the cause for school sickness

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- Concern continues to grow around what is making students sick in Louisville.

Usually, on Fridays the halls of Eiland Middle School are a hive of activity today they were eerily quiet.

Students, teachers, and even First Responders have fallen sick.

The cause is still unknown, but EMA Director Buddy King says they are one step closer to finding the source.

“We had a milestone yesterday determining that there are no environmental causes. The building’s sound; there are no outside processes that are contaminating our students and children, so the next step is to find out what is being brought in and how it’s getting in,” said Buddy King.

Now that the school itself has been ruled out, the question is now “what could it be”?

“We are looking at anything and everything there’s not one thing we’re particularly looking for but everything we discussed with the National Guard civil support team we’re definitely taking into consideration to make sure we can consider all factors considering they do this on a regular basis,” said Randy Grierson.

School leaders are hoping someone knows what substance is causing the sickness.

“We have an app that’s called “Stop It”. It’s an anonymous reporting database where students can report anything fraudulent going on; anything that’s going in one of the schools that could cause danger to this student, to the school. We’re encouraging our teachers and students to actually report these things, especially now that is going on this is the lives of children, and this is the safety of children we’re talking about. This is not a playful matter,” said Grierson.

“We’re gonna need the students to come talk to us talk to a teacher let us know what they know about outside substances coming in, so that we can identify and protect them better. We need to know who we need to protect them from,” said King.

More outside help is coming in to help determine the cause.

“We will have a doctor and Mr. King on site. He has been a paramedic, so we’ll have a doctor from the Mississippi Department of health here that will help us in case there is a case. They can see the symptoms; they can see they can maybe ask the students questions that we can’t ask, because we don’t have the knowledge to do,” said Grierson.

MEMA Director Greg Michel says the Mississippi Department of Health says they will have people in place when school starts back Monday.