Study Elucidating Disinfection at Nursery Schools in Ibaraki, Japan

Control of infectious diseases requires switching from usual hygiene such as water wiping and cleaning, to control measures including appropriate and aggressive disinfection using 70% alcohol and/or hypochlorous acid depending on the pathogen. Nevertheless, some nursery schools might not understand or select proper disinfectant methods. A survey was administered by the local government of Ibaraki prefecture, Japan in January 2018 to all 456 nursery schools in Ibaraki prefecture. The surveyed items were the number of nursery teachers, usual manual hygiene among children, usual disinfection for lavatories, diaper changing spaces, tables used by children for meals, and classroom floors when there was no vomiting in the facilities and no outbreak in surrounding area. Moreover, it asked about disinfection procedures if children vomited during a community outbreak of gastroenteritis infection. We defined proper use for usual disinfection of a lavatory or diaper changing space as chlorine-based disinfectant including hypochlorous acid or 70% alcohol according to guidelines. Overall, 403 nursery schools responded to the survey. All nursery schools implemented usual hand hygiene. Association between proper disinfection and the size of nursery schools was not significant. Moreover, association between proper disinfection and nursery schools with nurse presence was not found to be significant.