Introduction
Action for Healthy Kids states that students’ engagement is key to improving the school’s wellness. Students serve as the voice for schools’ health as they understand what is best for them, which can lead to meaningful influence in the classroom. Additionally, the action discourages the marketing of less nutritious beverages and foods as it sends differing messages to apprentices who have been taught about healthy nutrition in school. Standards of smart snacks should be met while vending concessions and snacks in school. Students perform well when parents and schools work hand in hand to help the kids attain full potential. All stakeholders are urged to learn and discover resources to establish long-lasting school-family collaborations. Also, the Action for Healthy Kids emphasizes on the importance of knowing the wellness jargon in school to grind with the experts. Changes in school can be significantly influenced by adopting a classroom health policy. Understanding the classroom work and its low-down is vital to influencing your student’s growth in the classroom. National PTA and Actions for Healthy Kids have joined hands to help parents informing healthier classrooms through a brand new enterprise, Parents for Healthy Kids. More than three hundred schools have received grants from the Action for Healthy Kids initiative for 2017-2018. The Action initiative describes the relevance of providing yearly professional development to the school staff to sharpen their wellness and health skills. Besides, the annual training ensures the staff’s fitness and health toolbox has the correct tools useful for classroom health leaders. The youth can be mobilized to move more and eat better via social media platforms. Healthy programs and changes will stick if practices are turned into region policies. Students should be told that fit decorations and marketing promote better eating habits. Schools should adopt physical activity as a form of punishment. CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) has toiled hard to reinforce its nutrition policies, practices, and procedures, thereby leading to an enhanced nutrition background for students.
Centre for Disease Control Guidelines for Animals in the Classroom
Animals are efficient and treasured teaching supports, but guidelines are required to minimize injury and infection possibilities. The Centre for Disease Control has suggested the following recommendations for animals in the classroom:
- Hands should be washed be after contacting the animals, animal environments, or animal products.
- Children under the age of five should be supervised when contacting animals.
- Animals should be displayed in suitable restraints or fenced cages.
- Zones for animal interactions should be designated.
- Food should not be allowed in zones for animal interactions. The animals should be restrained from accessing zones for preparing or consuming drinks or food.
- Animals should be restrained from roaming, flying, or contacting wildlife.
- The current zones for animals should be cleaned and disinfected. Kids should not perform the activity in the absence of adults.
- Suitable veterinary attention, evidence of rabies immunization, and a veterinary examination license should be obtained from the relevant state or local authorities.
- Animals should be cleaned and kept free of lice, intestinal parasites, mites, fleas, and ticks.
- The potential risks and benefits of keeping animals in classrooms should be informed to the parents. Parents whose children have a weakened immune system that is asthmatic or allergic should be consulted to tailor special attention required for them.
- Individuals providing animals for academic purposes should be aware of zoonotic illness issues and animal care. Facilities and persons that hold animal exhibitions ought to be licensed by the relevant authority body.
Aquariums should be cleaned using disposable gloves. The aquarium water should not be disposed of in sinks or used to prepare food or drink water. Psittacine birds such as cockatiels, parakeets, and parrots should be treated and test negative for avian chlamydiosis. Also, veterinary advice should be sought before using these birds. Domesticated cats, rodents, dogs, and rabbits should be immunized against rabies before being used in classrooms. Children under the age of five should not come into contact with baby ducks and chicks. This act prevents them from Campylobacter and Salmonella infections. Also, kids under the age of five years should be prevented from contacting reptiles such as snakes, turtles, and lizards to avoid infection with Salmonella. To prevent bites from ferrets, kids under five years of age should not interact with them. Livestock such as young poultry and ruminants egest Cryptosporidium, Campylobacter, and Salmonella, occasionally making them unsuitable for classroom settings. However, thorough attention to individual hygiene can assure their safety. Animals at significant risk for spreading rabies are problematic for students in the classroom, and the pupils should not touch them. Owl pellets are infected with Salmonella; therefore, dissections ought not to be carried in zones of consuming foods. Contact zones should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. Hands should be washed after interacting with the owl pellets.
The following animals are not recommended in classroom settings: naturally dangerous animals such as bears, lions, cougars, and tigers. Primates that are not human such as apes and monkeys. Highly infectious mammals such as foxes, bats, and raccoons that transmit rabies. Unpredictable and aggressive animals. Animals whose vaccination and health history is not known. Venomous reptiles, insects, amphibians, and spiders.
Three Types of Vaccines
Vaccines are formulated to teach a person’s immune system on how to get rid of pathogens and their various illnesses. Factors to be considered when producing vaccines include:
- The response of the immune system to the pathogens
- The person being vaccinated against the pathogen
- The best approach or technology of creating the vaccine
Based on the factors mentioned above, there are various forms of vaccines: live-attenuated, toxoid, inactivated and conjugate, recombinant, polysaccharide, and subunit vaccines. Live-attenuated vaccines utilize a weakened type of pathogen that causes the disease. Given that the vaccine is so similar to the natural pathogen they aid to prevent, they result in a long-lasting and robust immune response. Only one or two doses of the live-attenuated vaccine are needed to give a person a lifetime defense against the pathogen and its illness. However, these weakened vaccines are limited in the following ways. For example, people with immunocompromised systems, individuals with an organ transplant, and those with life-long health complications should first consult with their health practitioners before receiving this vaccine. These vaccines need relatively low temperatures for their storage; therefore, they cannot be used in states without refrigerators. This vaccine protects the host against yellow fever, smallpox, chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella (MMR multi vaccine).
Inactivated vaccines utilize the destroyed version of the pathogen that results in a disease. This type of vaccine provides less protection as compared to live-weakened vaccines. These vaccines need to be administered severely to boost the current immunity against illnesses. This vaccine offers protection against flu, hepatitis A, rabies, and polio.
Polysaccharide, conjugate, recombinant, and subunit vaccines utilize particular pathogen segments, such as its capsid, sugar, and protein. As the vaccines use specific regions of the organism, they result in resilient immune responses directed to significant parts of the organism. They are suitable for everybody, even to those with immunocompromised immune systems and persistent health complications. However, booster doses (shots) are needed to get the current defense against illnesses. The vaccines are utilized against hepatitis B, whooping cough, Haemophilus influenza type b disease, shingles, human papillomavirus, meningococcal and pneumococcal disease. Toxoid inoculations use toxins secreted by the infectious agent that bases an illness. They result in an immune response against specific regions of the pathogen rather than the pathogen itself. These immunizations protect the body against tetanus and diphtheria.
Flu (influenza) vaccinations result in the development of antibodies in the body after two weeks of vaccination. The antibodies confer defense against the viral infection used to produce the vaccine. The seasonal influenza vaccine defends the body against flu viruses, which have been seen to occur during the forthcoming season. This virus results in high mortality and morbidity degrees every year. The virus bypasses the self-acquired defense because of its ability to change antigenically. Vaccination is the technique of prophylaxis. Vaccination prompts 50-80 percent efficacy, and the patient tolerates it very well. Yearly vaccination is endorsed for individuals at risk of influenza complications.
Nevertheless, the vaccine can be improved for it to be effective, have a prolonged effect, and be administered quickly. The flu virus penetrates the host body via the respiratory tract mucosal tissues, and the immune system of the mucosal tissue forms the main line of protection against the pathogen (Tregoning et al., 2018, p. 555). The infections are prevented from entering the host body by secretory IgM and immunoglobulin A (SIgA).
There are two significant flu vaccine types; these are inactivated vaccine (IV) given intramuscu-orally or subcutaneously, and the cold-adapted vaccine (CAV) is administered intranasally or orally. The market accessible trivalent IV (TIV) triggers suitable serum-antibody activities but elicits unfavorable host-mediated immunity and mucosal IgA. On the other hand, cold-adapted vaccines may induce broader, prolonged immune responses (both cellular and humoral) that closely resemble natural protection. The virus causes illness in every person; however, children are more prone to this infection. Nevertheless, severe problems and death are more pronounced in adults 65 years and above and people with weakened immune response. Vaccinations are recommended to people often to be exacerbated by complications of the flu such as aged people with 65 years and above, individuals with chronic health conditions like metabolic, renal dysfunctions, pulmonary, immune-compromised patients, and those with cardiovascular issues. Prolonged aspirin treatment is recommendable to children (Yamayoshi, 2019, p. 218). Expectant mothers are recommended to be vaccinated in their third or second trimester. Residents of nursing facilities and medical care practitioners are also supposed to be vaccinated. Flu prophylaxis involves the use of antiviral medicines and vaccines. Some of the licensed drugs used in treating influenza include the NA inhibitors (oseltamivir and zanamivir) and M2 ion channel inhibitors (rimantadine and amantadine).