Abstract
BackgroundHygiene behavior plays a relevant role in infectious disease transmission. The aim of this study was to evaluate non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) in preventing pediatric influenza infections.MethodsLaboratory confirmed influenza cases occurred during 2009–10 and 2010–11 seasons matched by age and date of consultation. NPI (frequency of hand washing, alcohol-based hand sanitizer use and hand washing after touching contaminated surfaces) during seven days prior to onset of symptoms were obtained from parents of cases and controls.ResultsCases presented higher prevalence of underlying conditions such as pneumonia [OR = 3.23; 95 % CI: 1.38 – 7.58 p = 0.007], asthma [OR = 2.45; 95 % CI: 1.17 – 5.14 p = 0.02] and having more than 1 risk factor [OR = 1.67; 95 % CI: 0.99 – 2.82 p = 0.05]. Hand washing more than 5 times per day [aOR = 0.62; 95 % CI: 0.39 – 0.99 p = 0.04] was the only statistically significant protective factor. When considering two age groups (pre-school age 0–4 yrs and school age 5–17) yrs , only the school age group showed a negative association for influenza infection for both washing more than 5 times per day [aOR = 0.47; 95 % CI: 0.22 – 0.99 p = 0.04] and hand washing after touching contaminated surfaces [aOR = 0.19; 95 % CI: 0.04 – 0.86 p = 0.03].ConclusionFrequent hand washing should be recommended to prevent influenza infection in the community setting and in special in the school age group.
Highlights
Hygiene behavior plays a relevant role in infectious disease transmission
The community setting and hygiene behavior play an important role in controlling influenza, whether seasonal or pandemic, and emerging infectious diseases provide a good chance for promoting universal preventive measures such as hand hygiene [1]
Cases had a mean age of 5.4 years (SD = ±4.5), 42.3 % were females, 88.9 % were Caucasian, 74.3 % had secondary or higher education, 36.6 % had parents smokers and only 0.9 % had received any influenza vaccine while 35.9 % had received at least one dose of pneumococcal vaccine and 32.7 % were fully vaccinated according to their age
Summary
Hygiene behavior plays a relevant role in infectious disease transmission. The aim of this study was to evaluate non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) in preventing pediatric influenza infections. The community setting and hygiene behavior play an important role in controlling influenza, whether seasonal or pandemic, and emerging infectious diseases provide a good chance for promoting universal preventive measures such as hand hygiene [1]. The World Health Organization (WHO) and other health organizations have stressed the need to highlight the importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) such as hand. Hand hygiene is a key intervention for reducing transmission of acute respiratory infections (ARI) and other infections such as diarrhea in community settings. Studies examining hygiene practices during respiratory illness and interventions targeting aerosol transmission are needed [8]. It has been postulated that the effect of interventions may be higher in the pandemic scenario because of public anxiety giving way to higher rates of adherence, similar to what was observed during the SARS epidemic [9]
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