Characteristics of school public health emergencies in Zhejiang Province / 预防医学

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze the characteristics of school public health emergencies in Zhejiang Province, and to provide current suggestions for prevention and control. Methods A descriptive epidemiological analysis was conducted for the public health emergencies occurred in schools from 2014 to 2016 in Zhejiang Province. The data was derived from Emergency Public Reporting System. Results A total of 100 public health emergencies occurred in schools and 3 784 cases were reported during 2014-2016 in Zhejiang Province, meanwhile no death occurred. There were two peak seasons every year for the emergency report. Forty percent of the emergencies were reported during November to January of the following year, and 31.00 % were during April to May. The emergencies occurred on all the municipal districts when Ningbo accounted for 50.00%. The schools and kindergartens in rural area, town and urban area reported 37, 28 and 35 emergencies respectively. The main etiology of emergencies included varicella(37.00%), hand-foot-mouth disease(29.00%), norovirus(22.00%). The median duration of varicella outbreaks was 31.67d, which was longer than others. The scale of influenza and norovirus outbreaks were larger, and the median cases were 76 and 49 respectively. The time of emergencies detecting was significantly different between different detecting patterns. Conclusion The prevention and control of school emergencies was still urgently. There were still some deficiencies in the identification and active reporting of the epidemic, which need to be solved, while taking advantage of the surveillance system for sick absence. The future strategies should focused on reinforcing immunization and improving health habits to promote school health.