Schools play an important role in controlling the spread of illness by quickly recognizing and reporting a potential communicable disease outbreak at your school.
Examples of communicable diseases include measles, human papilloma virus, hepatitis B and influenza.
Steps schools should take if they suspect an outbreak - Notify your administrator when there is an absenteeism rate of 10% or more in the school population (staff and students) due to illness or when there is an apparent increase in the number of ill students and staff from the same classroom or other grouping such as a club or a sports team.
- The administrator will contact your school’s public health nurse who will begin an investigation into a possible outbreak situation by gathering information about the people who are absent.
- The public health nurse may contact some of the absent students or staff to collect more information and determine appropriate intervention, recommendations and follow up.
Information schools should provide to the public health nurse- Number of students and staff who are absent on a given date.
- Number of students and staff in the school regularly.
- Names of absent students and staff (does not need to be a complete list.)
- Reasons given for absenteeism.
- Information about any symptoms that are present if the absenteeism is due to illness. The public health nurse will follow up on this.
- Any other information that might help us to determine if the high absenteeism rate is due to an outbreak.
Learn moreDownload Section 3 of the 2011 School Health Manual below for more information on your role and resources for fighting the flu and other communicable diseases:
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