When the school year started, we made sure to fulfill the requests made by our girls’ teachers for supplies.  One of the items included were disinfecting wipes.  Now,if you have spent any time around children, it is not hard to understand why the teachers were requesting those wipes.  I mean, sure, teachers want to encourage and teach sharing but one of the things universally shared by kids are germs, something best kept to oneself, right?

Time has passed and we are getting closer to the end of the school year but germ season is still in top form.  As a person who picks up every germ that even glances her way, I try to be extra conscientious about washing and disinfecting during cold and flu season.  I know germs have been flying around our school like wildfire, leaving entire families down and out due to illness.

Did you know that illnesses caused by bacteria and viruses account for millions of lost school days each year?  And 76 percent of school nurses treat more than 16 ill students every day.

Earlier this year, I participated in a forum on preventing germ transmission in schools.  The primary speaker was Dr. Thomas Sandora, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Children’s Hospital Boston.  During the forum, he shared with us his findings from a study an Avon, OH, elementary school that showed that simple infection control steps helped reduce student absenteeism from GI illnesses.

The study, published in the June issue of Pediatrics, found that absenteeism rates for GI illnesses were lower in classrooms where teachers used disinfecting wipes once a day on desktops and helped students use alcohol-based hand sanitizers during times when illness transmission might occur (such as before lunch or after coming in contact with other ill students).

In these classrooms, 16 percent of students stayed home with a GI illness during the study period, compared to 24 percent of students in classrooms that did not receive the extra disinfecting and hand hygiene measures.

Dr. Sandora’s conclusion?  Cleaning your hands and preventing exposure to the germs that cause illness does make a measurable difference.

So how can you help?  Teachers are busy trying to meet all that is required of them at this point in the year and can use all of the help they can get.  Help them out by checking in and seeing if they could use some more wipes or hand sanitizer to help keep the germs at bay and your kids in school everyday.  Another way is to go back over hand washing and hygiene habits with your kids.  Dr Sandora recommends the following:

When should we practice hand hygiene?

• After using the toilet
• Before eating or handling food
• After sneezing, coughing or blowing your nose
• After handling pets
• After shaking hands with people who are sick
• After changing diapers
• Before and after cleaning cuts and scrapes
• After having any contact with blood or other bodily fluids

Here is to a healthy and happy Spring!