Flu, scabies or scarlet fever: 30 diseases that prevent your child from going to school in Catalonia | Catalonia | Spain

If your child suffers from diseases of the mouth, hands, feet; or you test positive for RSV, the bronchiolitis virus, you should stay home. These are the two main diseases that the Department of Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia included in the document. Criteria for not attending school or kindergarten for a certain period of time due to infectious diseasescompared to the previous edition, in 2018. They appear for the first time in the Health guide, which lists up to 30 diseases for which school should be avoided, as well as another 10 that require control measures.

The list includes the main pathologies that must be notified, as well as those that are most often detected in the field of education, the department reported. RSV, which causes bronchiolitis and pneumonia, reached rates of up to 580 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in children under four years of age last year, with the rate almost five times higher in children under one year of age. For this reason, hospitals were under great pressure to provide medical care. This year, immunization against RSV began using monoclonal antibodies, and the number of hospitalizations fell sharply. Health recommends avoiding contact “until recovery or for 24 hours after the fever has resolved” once a positive RSV test is received at an outpatient clinic.

The Health section on rashes and skin lesions includes mouth, hands, feet, a highly contagious disease common in children under five years of age, in which mouth ulcers or skin rashes develop on these extremities of the body. “Hygiene and hand washing are essential to minimize the risk of spread,” insists the guide.

The document stresses that infectious diseases are “common” among schoolchildren and insists that those with a “mild” respiratory infection should not stay at home. “Transmission of infection occurs before the onset of symptoms or through contact with other children with asymptomatic infections,” says the document prepared by the ministry’s General Directorate of Public Health Surveillance and Emergency Response.

The guidelines list conditions under which a student should avoid attending school: when they are unable to carry out activities “normally”; when a disease requires “more attention” than those responsible for education can attribute to it; when there is “fever, lethargy, irritability, or constant crying”; or when skin rashes occur with fever and there is no medical diagnosis. These terms have already been included in the latest edition. Health sources stress the importance of avoiding attending classes with a fever or after taking fever-reducing medications: “First, if you lower your fever, you will not stop being contagious; and secondly, its effect lasts from six to eight hours, and at the end of the school day the child will feel unwell again,” they insist.

Diseases specified in the document

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• Respiratory infections. Sore throat, viral tonsillitis, whooping cough (whooping cough), tuberculosis, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
• Gastrointestinal diseases. Diarrhea caused by salmonella or shigella, diarrhea or vomiting caused by other microorganisms and norovirus.
• Rash or skin lesions. Mouth-arm-foot, scarlet fever, rubella, measles, shingles (if the vesicles ooze), chicken pox, impetigo, scabies, lice and ringworm. Measures should be taken while attending school for the appearance of warts (in swimming pools, gyms, etc.), fin foot, molluscum contagiosum, herpes simplex (avoid kissing or contact with these formations) and erythema.
• Eye infections. Purulent conjunctivitis (with discharge or hooked eyelids).
• Other infections: Bacterial meningitis, mononucleosis, mumps and hepatitis A. Special care is also required without the need to attend school for cases of viral meningitis, hepatitis B and C, HIV (not transmitted by casual contact) and pinworms (intestinal worms).

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