Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul 1;9(1):81.
doi: 10.1186/s40249-020-00695-2.

Health-education to prevent COVID-19 in schoolchildren: a call to action

Darren J Gray  1 , Johanna Kurscheid  2 , Mary Lorraine Mationg  2 , Gail M Williams  3 , Catherine Gordon  4 , Matthew Kelly  2 , Kinley Wangdi  2 , Donald P McManus  5
Affiliations

Health-education to prevent COVID-19 in schoolchildren: a call to action

Darren J Gray et al. Infect Dis Poverty. .

Abstract

Background: There is currently considerable international debate around school closures/openings and the role of children in the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Whilst evidence suggests that children are not impacted by COVID-19 as severely as adults, little is still known about their transmission potential, and with a lot of asymptomatic cases they may be silent transmitters (i.e. infectious without showing clinical signs of disease), albeit at a lower level than adults. In relation to this, it is somewhat concerning that in many countries children are cared for, or are often in close contact with, older individuals such as grandparents ─ the age group most at risk of acquiring serious respiratory complications resulting in death.

Main text: We emphasise that in the absence of a vaccine or an effective therapeutic drug, preventive measures such as good hygiene practices ─ hand washing, cough etiquette, disinfection of surfaces and social distancing represent the major (in fact only) weapons that we have against COVID-19. Accordingly, we stress that there is a pressing need to develop specific COVID-19 prevention messages for schoolchildren.

Conclusion: An entertainment education intervention for schoolchildren systematically implemented in schools would be highly effective and fill this need. With such measures in place there would be greater confidence around the opening of schools.

Keywords: COVID-19; Children; Health education; Health promotion; Prevention.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interest. Donald P. McManus is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Infectious Diseases of Poverty.

References

    1. LLu X, Zhang L, Du H, Zhang J, Li YY, Qu J, et al. SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children. N Engl J Med. 2020. 10.1056/NEJMc2005073. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Worby CJ, Chaves SS, Wallinga J, Lipsitch M, Finelli L, Goldstein E. On the relative role of different age groups in influenza epidemics. Epidemics. 2015;13:10–16. doi: 10.1016/j.epidem.2015.04.003. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. Coronavirus. Available from: https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_1. Accessed 2 April 2020.
    1. World Health Organization. Education for health: a manual on health education in primary health care. Available from: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/77769. Accessed 1 April 2020.
    1. Bieri FA, Gray DJ, Raso G, Li YS, McManus DP. A systematic review of preventive health educational videos targeting infectious diseases in schoolchildren. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2012;87:972–978. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.2012.12-0375. - DOI - PMC - PubMed