Guidelines on How to Prevent Infection Contamination at School

How does the infection spread at school?

• There are two major kinds of infection: bacterial and viral. The former is the kind of infection that lasts for 12 to 24 hours and doesn’t affect any major organs. The latter is the kind of infection that will last for more than 48 hours and usually affects the major organs like the lungs and the heart. Regardless of what kind of infection might exist at school, it is nonetheless contagious by nature. There are so many ways to transfer infection like skin to skin contact, air borne and droplets are the most common channel of infection. The good thing is, any infection could be avoided if specific guidelines will be strictly implemented. In this article, I will discuss the major preventive measures that will help to minimize if not to completely eradicate infection contamination at school.

What are the specific guidelines to prevent infection contamination at school?

1. Hand-washing

Hand-washing, medically known as the universal precaution plays a very important role in infection control. The principle is to educate the kids to wash their hands before and after contact to any objects that might be a very good place to culture bacteria and viruses. The kids should also be taught with the proper way on how to execute proper hand-washing to achieve the highest potential of the infection control through hand-washing.

2. Covering the mouth when coughing and sneezing

Droplet as means of transfer of infection from one host to another is best described and illustrated upon coughing and sneezing. This is one of the most common ways on how to spread the viruses and bacteria through saliva as their vehicle. They can easily penetrate the body of their new host through the skin pores. It is best advised to the kids at school to cover their mouth upon coughing and sneezing and wash their hands after they do so. In this way, they will not share their existing infection to their classmates at school.

3. Avoid sharing of personal things and belongings

If you could observe, most of the classroom teachers require their students to bring their own glass at school so that when they drink, they will not need to borrow from their classmates; however, sharing of personal things and belongings could not be avoided, sometimes, if nobody will check on them, they tend to use somebody’s thing. This is only one scenario that infection contamination could really happen at school. Most of the students are becoming unconscious willing victims to be infected by any kind of disease commonly found at school like cough and colds.

4. Always have a proper ventilation

Most of the classrooms now-a-days are taking the advantage of using the air conditioner to make the classrooms more conducive for learning; while it is true that this will help to confine the classroom from any form of destruction, it is also confining the pathogens inside the classroom that will facilitate infection contamination because of varying air pressures inside and outside the room. That is why it is highly recommended to allow the air to pass through inside the classroom at specific schedule of time interval.

What is the best way to avoid infection contamination?

• Our immune system is responsible in combating infection inside our body. So, the best way to avoid infection contamination is to strengthen our immune system and this starts at home. Let the kids eat nutritious foods; let them enjoy the process of immunity as they expose themselves to the things that will not compromise their immune system.