A proposal for appropriate countermeasures to infectious diseases in schools

To the Editor:

Recently, I came across the 2012 report, “US school/academic institution disaster and pandemic preparedness and seasonal influenza vaccination among school nurses,” by Rebmann et al.¹ The report pointed out that although school preparedness for disasters and infectious disease emergencies is important, many schools are lacking adequate plans. It also highlighted the need for schools in the United States to coordinate their plans for infectious disease emergencies with local and regional disaster response agencies, and to test these through disaster drills and exercises. In the case of South Korea, after the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2015, communication between schools and the related prevention institutes and construction of collaborative systems were identified as areas in need of improvement. In this context, we conducted a survey among 311 school members who had participated in simulation training for countermeasures against infectious diseases in schools. The results demonstrated role allocation between members to be the area of highest concern. Coordination with disaster response agencies is important; however, attention must also be given to the internal allocation of roles among school members, such as the principal, school nurse, classroom teachers, and administrative staff.