Editor's Summary
10 April 2008
Schools out for influenza
One option open to public health authorities facing the prospect of an influenza pandemic is the closure of all the schools. A dramatic gesture, but would it help? There is a shortage of reliable data on the matter, but the Sentinel network, linking over a thousand general practitioners across France, provides a resource that can tackle the question by comparing a 21-year record of daily reported cases of flu-like disease with the dates of school vacations — the timing of which is staggered across France minimizing the impact of seasonal factors. The answer is yes, there is a reduction, of about 20%, in rates of flu transmission to children. This translates into a predicted reduction of about 15% in the overall number of cases if schools were closed during a pandemic, sufficient to reduce stress on the healthcare system, but not to stop the disease in its tracks.
Authors: Abstractions
doi:10.1038/7188xb
Letter: Estimating the impact of school closure on influenza transmission from Sentinel data
Simon Cauchemez, Alain-Jacques Valleron, Pierre-Yves Boëlle, Antoine Flahault & Neil M. Ferguson
doi:10.1038/nature06732
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (463K) | Supplementary information
