Staying Healthy Guidelines

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has this month released the 6th edition of their publication Staying healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services.

Children attend early childhood education and care (ECEC) services at a time when their immune systems are developing. They interact with more children and adults than they may usually interact with at home, which can expose them to different germs and bugs. The way children interact in regular daily activities and play can provide an opportunity for infection to spread.

Limiting the spread of infection and germs in ECEC services protects not only the children attending the service and their families, but also contributes to the work, health and safety of employees and the wider community.

The guidelines provide advice on infectious diseases to help ECEC services recognise the symptoms and take action to prevent the spread.

The latest edition of the Staying Healthy guidelines builds on the information provided in previous publications.

There are new factsheets and recommendations for symptoms and specific conditions based on the latest research and information, including:

• diarrhoea and vomiting (gastroenteritis)
• eye discharge
• fever
• rash
• COVID-19
• RSV (respiratory syncytial virus)
• shingles.

The publication is available digitally via the NHMRC website and features interactive and easy to navigate pages. It can also be downloaded as a PDF for personal printing.

This information was sourced via the NHMRC website.