Establishment of continuous base for study and education to prevent influenza pandemic in district areas

以三重县美和镇下明和、妙约两所小学为研究对象，建立了明确社区流感流行机制的教育-实践-分析循环基础。在流感流行之前，学校的孩子们学习了流感感染的基本知识和预防方法。在此期间，他们记录了自己的流感临床路径。我们获得的控制社区流感流行的重要信息如下：(1)小学流感疫情在3个月左右呈渐进式持续而非爆发性，(2)停课不能完全消除疫情，反而延缓了疫情的发生，(3)许多儿童在发烧前出现咳嗽等上呼吸道症状。这些结果表明，儿童在发烧之前是一个感染源，因此，防止第二次感染是在学校和社区控制流感的有效方法。

The base of education-practice-analysis cycle to clarify the mechanism of influenza epidemic in a community has been established on two elementary schools, Shimomiito and Myojo in Meiwa-town, Mie Prefecture. Before epidemic period, children in the school studied basic knowledge of influenza infection and methods to prevent it. In the period, they recorded clinical path of their own influenza. We obtained the important information to control influenza endemic in communities as follows; (1) influenza epidemic in elementary schools continued gradually not explosively about three months, (2) the closing class could not cancel epidemic but delay it, and (3) many children showed some symptoms of upper respiratory tract including cough just before getting fever. These results suggest that a child just before getting fever works as a source of infection, and therefore, preventing the second infection from it is effective to control influenza in schools and communities.