School Hygiene and Nutrition Warning: Crowding Can Increase Infection Risks

As schools reopen, children will spend much of their day in crowded classrooms and shared spaces, raising the risk of infectious diseases, especially during the first weeks of the term.

Pediatrician Prof. Dr. Osman Küçükosmanoğlu said preventing infections requires schools, teachers and families to act together. He stressed that child health during the school year involves more than infections, including hygiene, nutrition and school safety.

He pointed to crowded classrooms and the cleanliness of toilets and other shared facilities as particular concerns. Hygiene conditions, he said, should meet a common standard in every school.

Küçükosmanoğlu also addressed requests for parents to provide basic supplies such as toilet paper and soap. He said those needs should be covered by public budgets. “There needs to be a standard for these things, and they must definitely be provided,” he said.

Children starting school are entering a crowded environment for the first time, he added, warning that contagious illnesses such as scabies can appear alongside infections.

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There needs to be a standard for these things, and they must definitely be provided.