The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has launched their sixth edition of Staying Healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services in a bid to tackle the transmission of germs amongst young kids.
Known as the ‘go to’ resource for childcare providers over the past 30 years, Staying Healthy is a best-practice guideline that provides simple and effective ways for education and care services to help limit the spread of infectious diseases.
In Australia, every education and care service must ensure that risks associated with infection are prevented or minimised as far as is ‘reasonably practical.’ This includes having strategies to:
- prevent or minimise exposure to infectious diseases
- safely store and minimise exposure to chemicals used to manage infection risks
- ensure that infection control practices are implemented and maintained.
Professor Chris Blyth, paediatric infectious diseases physician and Centre Head of the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccine and Infectious Diseases based at Telethon Kids Institute, chaired the committee overseeing the guidelines.
“Childcare centres have the unfortunate reputation of being a breeding ground for germs, so these guidelines play a very important role in assisting staff in education and care services to lead by example and practice effective infection prevention and control,” he explained.
“‘To ensure we have provided evidence-based but also implementable guidance, we have brought together the nation’s experts in public health, infectious diseases, and early childhood education.
“Valuable input from WA was provided by Dr Briony Hazelton, paediatric ID physician and microbiologist from Perth Children’s Hospital and Pathwest, and Dr Gabriela Willis, a public health physician from the Boorloo Public Health Unit.”
While general service practices have not changed between the fifth and sixth editions, guidance has been updated and expanded throughout to capture new evidence and ensure the advice provided is comprehensive and clear.
For example, following the pandemic, information on the use of gloves, ventilation, hand hygiene and cleaning practices has been updated to ensure the content is clear and easy to implement in education and care services.
“Improvements have also been made to the structure and language to ensure users can easily find and understand the information,” Professor Blyth said.
“Similarly, in response to community comments and enquiries received by NHMRC on the fifth edition, fact sheets on symptoms and diseases have been added to the guideline.”
The new fact sheets for symptoms are:
- Diarrhoea or vomiting (gastroenteritis)
- Eye discharge
- Fever
- Rash
- Respiratory symptoms.
The new fact sheets for specific conditions are:
- Asthma
- COVID-19
- Human metapneumovirus
- Pneumonia
- Hepatitis E
- Typhoid and paratyphoid fever
- RSV (respiratory syncytial virus)
- Shingles
- Trachoma
“We hope these guidelines will help reduce the risk of infection in the early education sector and keep children, parents and staff well and happy so kids can fully benefit from the learning and socialisation these services provide,” Professor Blyth said.
The guidelines can be downloaded online by visiting the NHMRC website.