Vials of blood (from flickr, not associated with this story)

OSLO, March 8 (Reuters) – A Norwegian kindergarten teacher was fired this week after she brought a vial of her own blood to class and allowed children to touch and taste it, the head teacher of the kindergarten said on Friday.

The teacher in Sola, on Norway’s western coast, brought in a blood sample that was taken earlier in the day and poured it on a plate for the children, aged between 3 and 6, to see.

“The children asked if they could touch it and she allowed them,” Inger Lise Soemme Andersen told Reuters. “Then they asked ‘how do we get it off?’ so she put her finger in her mouth and the children followed suit.

“The parents are mortified, shaken and shocked.”

Soemme Andersen added that the teacher, a temporary employee, had been tested for AIDS and Hepatitis B following the incident. Results of the tests are not yet in, but authorities consider the risk of transmitting any infection very low.

(Reporting by Joachim Dagenborg; editing by Mike Collett-White)