Infectious diseasesepidemiology and surveillance

Children in day care centres and other children’s services centres and kindergartens are particularly at risk of developing communicable diseases because of:

• Close contact with other children and staff
• Lack of previous exposure to common infections
• Lack of toilet training
• Lack of control of other body secretions
• Mouthing behaviour

These risk factors may be increased when staff are not appropriately trained, group sizes are large, and mixing of age groups occurs.

Infections with the following organisms have been shown to be more common in these settings, or have been reported as epidemic:

• Respiratory Syncytial virus (RSV)
• Influenza virus
• Haemophilus influenzae type b
• Neisseria meningitidis
• Shigella spp
• Rotavirus
• Giardia lamblia
• Cryptosporidium
• Hepatitis A
• E. coli
• Campylobacter spp
• Parvovirus B19 (erythema infectiosum)
• Coxsackievirus group A (hand, food and mouth disease)
• Streptococcus, pyogenes, Staphylococcus aureus (impetigo)
• Cytomegalovirus
• Scabies
• Head lice