The crisis management of school in human swine influenza outbreak

The outbreak of human swine influenza (HSI) in different areas in 2009 aroused concern throughout the world. In order to combat this disease’s transmission, various health organizations have tried their best to set up special crisis management teams to deal with the effects in the community. Since schools are places that gather many students, teachers and parents, they are the high-risk groups to contract the HSI virus. We must be on alert and strengthen personal and environmental hygiene. In a school setting, an effective crisis management team is essential to formulate preventive and contingency measures against HSI. In this paper, the role of the school crisis management team, the response mechanism and post-event evaluation will be the key issues to be emphasized. The hierarchy of the crisis management team and the roles of different crisis management team members are taken from one secondary school used as an example. Different schools may have their own makeup of staff, students, parents and surrounding community, so the information or reviews in this paper can serve as a reference for the schools towards disease prevention. Many in-depth studies, in areas such as teacher training, rehearsal practice or resource allocation, should be investigated in the future.