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Review
. 2021 Dec;63(12):1419-1423.
doi: 10.1111/ped.14921. Epub 2021 Oct 28.

Urgent need to strengthen school health in Asia and the Pacific islands

Jun Kobayashi  1   2   3 , Rie Takeuchi  1   2   4 , Yuko Toyama  5 , Ernesto R Gregorio Jr  3 , Hamsu Kadriyan  6 , Crystal Amiel M Estrada  3 , Makoto Motomura  7 , Norie Wake  5 , Kyoko Yamada  8 , Ryuji Ishikawa  9 , Minoru Takakura  10
Affiliations
Review

Urgent need to strengthen school health in Asia and the Pacific islands

Jun Kobayashi et al. Pediatr Int. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

In Asia and the Pacific island region, strengthening of school health activities and measures is urgently recommended to deal with the impact of the increasing risk of potential school closures due to continuation of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2021. As the incidence of COVID-19 in 2020 was relatively low in these regions, many of the countries were able to avoid prolonged school closures. However, even if vaccination is expanded in the future and the pandemic tends to come to an end, the risk of SARS-CoV-2 variants spreading among children will also increase, and the possibility of having to close schools again will also increase.

Keywords: Asia; COVID-19; Pacific island; school closure; school health.

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Conflict of interest statement

This study was supported by a University of the Ryukyus Research Project toward Post‐COVID Society grant and the EDU‐Port Japan Project as "2021 Research Project" under Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. The sponsor did not play any role in this study.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Number of suicides among students (primary schools, secondary schools, high schools, and universities) by month during 2018–2020. Data from Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan. Blue line: 2018; green line: 2019; orange line: 2020. The period between the orange dotted lines indicates the duration of school closure due to the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020 (March to May 2020).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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Supplementary concepts