View report page

During outbreaks of infectious diseases in schools many
requests are received by the Public Health Staff from Head
Teachers for classrooms to be disinfected. In this connection
the "Memorandum on the Closure of and Exclusion from
School "issued jointly by the Ministry of Health and the Board
of Education—a copy of which is in the hands of each Head
Teacher—contains the following points which might be quoted:—
"There is little doubt that infection in Schools is spread
to a much greater extent by infectious persons than by
infected things, and that by systematically obtaining the
information as to infectious cases and by adopting
the measures of exclusion of patients and of recent
'contacts' with them the common source of
infection can be controlled."
"Disinfection of special classrooms or of particular
articles should be undertaken when there is reason to
believe that these have been infected."
"The frequent and thorough washing of classrooms and
cloakrooms is an efficient means of removing both dust
and infection."
These quotations are given to show that each outbreak must
be considered individually, that disinfection is not always
necessary, and, indeed, may be wasteful, more especially if
carried out at the wrong time.
Reference must also be made to one other preventive
measure on which too much value is occasionally placed,
namely, the swabbing of "contacts" in school when a case of
diphtheria occurs. This swabbing of throats and noses is undoubtedly
useful if cases continue to crop up in some particular
classroom, but the discovery of bacteriological " carrier " cases
should always be followed up by having a virulence test made
of the germ found.
37