A McMaster University led study has said that closing elementary and secondary schools can help slow the spread of infectious disease.
![Spread of H1N1 Slowed by School Closures Spread of H1N1 Slowed by School Closures](https://images.medindia.net/health-images/1200_1000/H1N1.jpg)
"Our study demonstrates that school-age children were important drivers of pH1N1 transmission in 2009," says David Earn, lead author of the study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Earn is professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and member of McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research (IIDR).
Alberta was the only Canadian province to continue extensive virologic testing throughout the first wave and continuously to the middle of the second wave of the 2009 pandemic, allowing researchers to identify the causes of changes in incidence as the pandemic progressed.
"The data that we obtained were so good that our plots immediately revealed a huge drop in incidence when schools were closed for the summer," says Earn. "Using state-of-the-art modeling, we then demonstrated that transmission was reduced by at least 50 per cent."
The model also indicates that seasonal changes in weather significantly affected influenza transmission in cities in Alberta, but that they were much less important than school closures.
"Our study emphasizes the value of gathering data consistently throughout an outbreak," says Earn. "For example, in Ontario they imposed testing restrictions on June 11, before schools had closed. We couldn't possibly have done this analysis based on other parts of Canada."
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He adds that this article will help policy makers make the hard decision of whether or not to close schools during a pandemic outbreak.
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The study also involved McMaster investigators Jonathan Dushoff, associate professor of biology, and Mark Loeb, professor and division director of infectious diseases for the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, who are also members of the IIDR.
Source-Eurekalert