RINGWORM IN CHILDREN

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28008, 30 June 1956, Page 13

RINGWORM IN CHILDREN

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE RESTRICTIONS RELAXATION BY HEALTH DEPARTMENT The serious loss of many months of schooling, often just at the critical age in the education of an otherwise healthy child, has led the Department of Health to relax the regulation on school attendance of children affected by ringworm, according to an in the latest issue of “Health, the official bulletin of the department. “The revising of these restrictions need cause no panic among parents who fear that their children might catch ringworm from those who sit next to them at school. They are mticn more likely to catch the ailment from playing with infected kittens at their own firesides than he is from friends, the article says. . “Only after serious consideration, and investigations by the University of Otago have these conclusions been reached. No case in the survey undertaken proved to be caused or spread by child-to-child contact in school. “Ringworm, once associated with grimv neglect, is a misnomer. It has nothing to do with ‘worms.’ It is • contagious skin fungus, in New Zealand, primarily adapted to parasite life on domestic pets, and can be caught by the most fastidiously-kept child by his contact with infected animals. “Of 200 infected children surveyed, many more than half had been in contact with cats, fewer with puppies, and a few witn calves. Of the very small percentage of child-to-child infections, most occurred directly within the family or home surroundings. The virulence of the complaint in any event, decreases in the human body,” the article says.