scholarly journals SARS-CoV-2 transmission in educational settings during an early summer epidemic wave in Luxembourg, 2020

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joël Mossong ◽  
Laurent Mombaerts ◽  
Lisa Veiber ◽  
Jessica Pastore ◽  
Gwenaëlle Le Coroller ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Following a first wave in spring and gradual easing of lockdown, Luxembourg experienced an early second epidemic wave of SARS-CoV-2 before the start of summer school holidays on 15th July. This provided the opportunity to investigate the role of school-age children and school settings for transmission. Methods We compared the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in school-age children, teachers and the general working population in Luxembourg during two epidemic waves: a spring wave from March–April 2020 corresponding to general lockdown with schools being closed and May–July 2020 corresponding to schools being open. We assessed the number of secondary transmissions occurring in schools between May and July 2020 using routine contact tracing data. Results During the first wave in March–April 2020 when schools were closed, the incidence in pupils peaked at 28 per 100,000, while during the second wave in May–July 2020 when schools were open, incidence peaked 100 per 100,000. While incidence of SARS-CoV-2 was higher in adults than in children during the first spring wave, no significant difference was observed during the second wave in early summer. Between May and July 2020, we identified a total of 390 and 34 confirmed COVID-19 cases among 90,150 school-age children and 11,667 teachers, respectively. We further estimate that 179 primary cases caused 49 secondary cases in schools. While some small clusters of mainly student-to-student transmission within the same class were identified, we did not observe any large outbreaks with multiple generations of infection. Conclusions Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within Luxembourg schools was limited during an early summer epidemic wave in 2020. Precautionary measures including physical distancing as well as easy access to testing, systematic contact tracing appears to have been successful in mitigating transmission within educational settings.

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Rabab Gad Abd El-Kader ◽  
Hanem Awad Mekhamier ◽  
Azza El-Sayed Ali Hegazy

Background and aim: Improving the eating habits of children is essential to reduce the future burden of non-communicable illnesses. Nutritional diseases affect higher than 30% of school age children. This study aimed to assess the dietary habits and nutritional knowledge among primary school age children in Fayoum Governorate, Egypt.Study design: A cross-sectional descriptive design was utilized. Setting: The study was implemented in three governmental mixed primary schools in EL-Fayoum city; Egypt, that were selected randomly. Sample: Cluster random sample techniques used for selecting of the study group consisted of 300 students aged from 10-12 years for both sexes attending grade five and six. Tools: three tools of data collection consisted of: 1- self-administered questionnaire comprised socio-demographic data of the students and parents, and students’ knowledge about nutrition, 2- the students’ dietary habits as consumption of the breakfast, drinking water, 3- Health assessment sheet to assess the students’ nutritional status including weight, height, BMI, and appearance.The study findings revealed that 69.3% of the study group were underweight, 36.3% were stunted, and 6.7%, 3.3% were overweight and obese respectively. About 45% had fair knowledge while 34% had good knowledge about the nutrition. More than half of the students had unhealthy dietary behavior and appearance. There was a statistically significant difference (P: 0<0.00) between the academic performance of the school children and their HAZ while there was no statistically significant difference between the academic performance of the students and their WAZ (P: 0.264).Conclusions: underweight is highly prevalent among the primary school students followed by stunting. Most of the students had unhealthy dietary habits and unhealthy appearance while around half of them had fair knowledge about nutrition. The current study recommended developing a nutritional health program for primary school children about the proper nutrition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-217
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Saiediborojeni ◽  
Hamideh Mashalchi ◽  
Somayeh Mahdavikian ◽  
Masoud Fallahi ◽  
Soheil Saiediborojeni ◽  
...  

Posture disorders in school-age children are highly frequent. Poor movement and lack of physical mobility are the main causes of physical weaknesses. Thus, corrective exercises with the aim of solving these problems are significant. The aim of this study was an evaluation of the effects of various heel slopes on lumbosacral biomechanical angles in students with hyperlordosis. In this quasi-experimental study, 15 female students who were di- agnosed with hyperlordosis, participated in this study. They were divided into 3 groups (n=5) and performed corrective exercises on +3.7°, 0°, and -3.7° slopes for 8 weeks, 3 times a week. The changes in the lumbar lordosis angle (LLA), sacral based angle (SBA), and lumbosacral angle (LSA) were determined. Data were analyzed by SPSS 18 software using non-parametric test followed by the Krus- cal-wallis test. P<0.05 was considered significant. The results indicated no significant difference regarding the changes in LLA, SBA, and LSA in students with hyperlordosis (p>0.05) de- spite the decrease in the means of the angles in all groups. The results showed that by increasing the heel slope, the lumbo - sacral slope decreases also the lumbosacral angle decreases by decreasing the heel slope, this may indicate an association between these angles.The findings can help parents choose more appropriate shoes for their children to both prevent the incidence of posture dis- orders during childhood and spinal disorders in adulthood.


2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (6) ◽  
pp. 1244-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Gisele Tobias da Silva ◽  
Maiara Aurichio Santos ◽  
Claudia Maria de Freitas Floriano ◽  
Elaine Buchhorn Cintra Damião ◽  
Fernanda Vieira de Campos ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate the effects of Dramatic Therapeutic Play (DTP) technique on the degree of anxiety in hospitalized school-age children. Method: Randomized clinical trial performed in two hospitals ofSão Paulo, between May and October 2015. The intervention consisted of the application of DTP and the outcome was evaluated through the Child Drawing: Hospital (CD: H) instrument. The Wilcoxon-Mann Whitney, Corrected t, Fisher’s exact and Chi-square tests were used in the analysis. Statistical significance was set at 5%. Results: In all, 28 children participated in the study. The majority of children (75%) had a low anxiety score, with a mean CD: H score of 73.9 and 69.4 in the intervention and control groups respectively, and with no significant difference. Conclusion: Children submitted to DTP had the same degree of anxiety as those in the control group. However, it is suggested that new studies be performed with a larger number of children in different hospitalization scenarios.


2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (02) ◽  
pp. 135-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Stuart

Sentence recognition in noise was employed to investigate the development of temporal resolution in school-age children. Eighty children aged 6 to 15 years and 16 young adults participated. Reception thresholds for sentences (RTSs) were determined in quiet and in backgrounds of competing continuous and interrupted noise. In the noise conditions, RTSs were determined with a fixed noise level. RTSs were higher in quiet for six- to seven-year-old children (p = .006). Performance was better in the interrupted noise evidenced by lower RTS signal-to-noise ratios (S/Ns) relative to continuous noise (p < .0001). An effect of age was found in noise (p < .0001) where RTS S/Ns decreased with increasing age. Specifically, children under 14 years performed worse than adults. "Release from masking" was computed by subtracting RTS S/Ns in interrupted noise from continuous noise for each participant. There was no significant difference in RTS S/N difference scores as a function of age (p = .057). Children were more adversely affected by noise and needed greater S/Ns in order to perform as well as adults. Since there was no effect of age on the amount of release from masking, one can suggest that school-age children have inherently poorer processing efficiency rather than temporal resolution. Se utilizó el reconocimiento de frases en ruido para investigar el desarrollo de la resolución temporal en niños de edad escolar. Dieciocho niños con edades entre 6 y 15 años y 16 adultos jóvenes participaron. Los umbrales de recepción de frases (RTS) se determinaron en silencio y ante ruidos de fondo de competencia, continuos o interrumpidos. En condiciones de ruido, los RTS se determinaron contra un nivel fijo de ruido. Los RTS fueron más alto en silencio para los niños de seis a siete años de edad (p = .006). El desempeño fue mejor en medio de ruido interrumpido, con una tasa señal/ruido (S/N) menor para RTS, en relación al ruido continuo (p < .0001). Un efecto de la edad se encontró en medio de ruido (p < .0001) donde la S/N para RTS disminuyó conforma aumentó la edad. Específicamente, los niños menores de 14 años de edad funcionaron peor que los adultos. Se computó "liberación del enmascaramiento" sustrayendo las S/N para RTS en ruido interrumpido, de las de ruido continuo para cada participante. No existieron diferencias significativas en los puntajes de diferencia de las S/N para RTS como función de la edad (p = .057). Los niños se vieron más adversamente afectados por el ruido y necesitaron de mayores S/N para rendir tan bien como los adultos. Dado que no existió un efecto de la edad en la cantidad de liberación del enmascaramiento, uno puede sugerir que los niños de edad escolar tienen una eficiencia de procesamiento inherentemente más pobre que su resolución temporal.


Author(s):  
Peyman Zamani ◽  
Neda Tahmasebi ◽  
Mohammad Soroush Mehdifard ◽  
Saeed Hesam

Introduction: Studies have shown that Syllable Speech Technique (SST) can be a useful  and practical way to achieve stutter-free speech for Children With Stuttering (CWS). In this preliminary study, the use of SST in Persian-speaking school-age CWS was investigated. Materials and Methods: Ten 8- to 11-year-old students with stuttering were entered in the single-group pretest-posttest study as participants. Their speech fluency has been enhanced using SST accompanied by verbal encouragement for stutter-free speech. The percentage of stuttered syllables, stuttering severity, and communication attitude as outcome measures were evaluated in three time points: before the intervention (T0), after the intervention (T1), and one month after the intervention (T2). Results: The children showed significantly better scores on all outcome measures at T1 (P≤0.004) and T2 (P≤0.005) compared with T0. There was no significant difference between T1 and T2 (P≥0.026). Conclusion: The reported benefits of SST in stuttering reduction and speech-related anxiety- relieving of Persian-speaking school-age CWS confirms the feasibility and usefulness of this technique.


Author(s):  
Vera Yafeh Akwa ◽  
Waetsi Nya Yusufu ◽  
Victor Ugochukwu Obisike ◽  
Amina Ojochide Hassan

One of the parasitic infection faced by school age children in developing countries is intestinal parasitic infection. This study was designed to determine risk factors associated with gastrointestinal helminthic infections among school age children. A total of 600 stool samples were randomly examined by direct smear method under microscope and formol-ether concentration technique. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on socio-noneconomic status of the children’s parents and other variables. Of this, (n=252; 42%) were found to be infected with gastrointestinal helminths infections given a breakdown of male (n=148; 24.7%) and female (n=104; 17.3%). However, there was no significant difference in prevalence among the socio-economic status. Parent whose occupation was farmer (n=169; 28%) also recorded high rate of infection, the lowest prevalence was seen among civil servants (n=19; 3%). Parents with little or no knowledge of intestinal helminths were found to be statistically significant (n=199; 33.1%, p<0.02; α =0.02) The  highest  rate of infection was recorded among children who had dirty finger nails (n=232; 38.6%), followed by those who walked barefooted(28.2%),then open defecation (n=147; 24.6%),  hand washing after defecation (n=195; 30,7%,), habit of eating raw/roasted meat (n=136; 22.3%), hand washing before meal (n=102; 17.02%) and keeping of dirty clothes and bed linens (n=180; 30%) . Such a relatively high prevalence rate of helminthic infection in the study area could be used as a base line for the concern bodies to launch de-worming intervention campaigns.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL4) ◽  
pp. 153-157
Author(s):  
Muthulakshmi C ◽  
Kalpana Devi V

Respiratory problems are significant gathering of ailment influencing kids particularly in India and are the significant reasons for youth horribleness and mortality. Specifically, obstructive aviation route illnesses ascend in youngsters because of natural contamination and different causes. In this way, evaluation of aspiratory work test in such kids is significant. Henceforth the current investigation focused on to evaluate the adequacy of strelinikova breathing activity on respiratory signs and boundaries among younger students with respiratory parcel infection. The research configuration utilized was semi exploratory pre-test post-test plan. Purposive examining strategy was utilized to choose the 60 sample. The demographic data was collected by using the structured questionnaire and the oxygen level was measured by using the Pulse Oximeter. The peak flow rate was measured by using the Peak Flow Meter. The findings of the study revealed that there was significant difference in the measurement of oxygen saturation and respiratory rate between the experimental and control group which infers that Strelinikova Breathing Exercise on respiratory signs and parameters administered to the school age children with lower respiratory tract infection in the experimental group was found to be effective in maintaining the respiratory parameters among school age children and the current findings suggests that more extensive studies can be done at different settings and also as comparative studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eniola M. Abe ◽  
Onyinye C. Echeta ◽  
Akwashiki Ombugadu ◽  
Linus Ajah ◽  
Peter O. Aimankhu ◽  
...  

The burden of soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) infections in Nigeria is enormous with serious public health significance. This study, therefore, assessed helminthiasis among school-age children and the hygiene conditions of schools in Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria between December 2015 and April 2016 from four randomly selected primary schools. Stool samples were collected from 200 primary school pupils including 80 males (40%) and 120 females (60%) between five and 16 years, using clean sample bottles and a standard parasitology examination technique at the central laboratory at the Federal University, Lafia. An overall prevalence of 33.5% (67/200) helminths infections was recorded. A checklist of Ascaris lumbricoides, hookworm, Trichuris trichiura, and Strongyloides stercoralis was generated from the pooled data of the four studied schools in which A. lumbricoides occurred highest with 13% (26/200) while S. stercoralis was the least prevalent at 2.50% (5/200). Among the schools sampled, St. James Pilot Science Primary School’s children were the most infected at 44% (22/50). Multiple infections were observed in three of the four schools sampled. There was no significant difference (p > 0.05) in prevalence rates of different STHs infections in relation to age group and gender across schools. Our findings showed that the hygiene conditions in the studied schools were poor without water, hand washing materials, refuse bins, as well as poor sanitary conditions. This study also identified ova and larvae of STHs parasites in the analyzed soil samples from the studied schools. Most school-age children had knowledge about contamination but few among them washed their hands with water and soap. The obtained result indicated a negative association between the prevalence of STHs and the proportion of pupils that cleaned up with water after defection. We, therefore, advise that hygiene conditions in schools be improved and that the government should prioritize enrolling all primary schools in Nasarawa state for the school health program so as to reduce the burden of STHs among school-age children in the state.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joël Mossong ◽  
Laurent Mombaerts ◽  
Lisa Veiber ◽  
Jessica Pastore ◽  
Gwenaelle LeCoroller ◽  
...  

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis M. Bell ◽  
Nereida I. Lopez ◽  
Jennifer Pinto-Martin ◽  
Rosemary Casey ◽  
Frances M. Gill

Objective. To determine whether the use of an urban pediatric emergency department (ED) to immunize pre—school-age children would result in an improvement in the percentage fully vaccinated by the end of the second year of life. Design. A retrospective cohort study of two groups: (1) 100 consecutive children (ED group) enrolled at one of two hospital-affiliated primary care clinics were chosen from the ED patient logs if their second birthday occurred in the 12 months prior to November 1990; and (2) 91 age-matched control children (control group) were chosen at random from the same hospital-affiliated clinics' enrollment logs without regard to ED use. The health care provided during the first 2 years of life for each group was compared. Results. The mean number of visits to the ED in the first 2 years of life by the ED group was significantly greater than that of the control group (2.9 [SD] ± 2.5 vs 1.1 ± 1.4; P &lt; .001) during the first 2 years of life. In 67% of ED visits, children would have been well enough to receive a vaccination. Both groups had similar types and numbers of visits to the primary clinics. For example, the ED group had 10 ± 5 visits by age 2 years compared with the control group, which had 9 ± 4 visits. There was no significant difference in actual immunization percentages achieved in the clinic, with 62% of the ED group having received four diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus vaccinations; three oral poliovirus vaccinations; and one measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination by age 2 compared with 69% of control children. There were more missed vaccination opportunities during clinic visits in the ED group (7.4 vs 4.6 per 100 clinic visits; P &lt; .01). If immunizations were offered in the ED to those children who needed them, immunization percentages would have been increased an average of 20% compared with percentages achieved in the clinic alone. Conclusion. Routine vaccinations in the ED would significantly increase immunization percentages in children enrolled in two hospital-affiliated clinics. Close linkage and coordination between the ED and hospital-affiliated clinics may improve preventive health care in urban children who use EDs.


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