School‐based interventions on Mpox: A scoping review

Abstract

Background and Aims The 2022 multicountry mpox outbreak necessitated the declaration of mpox as a public health emergency. This is the first time a wide mpox spread and human‐to‐human transmission are recorded in several countries outside West and Central Africa. The outbreak reveals a strong need for wider intervention to increase awareness and control measures on mpox, especially in schools. This scoping review aims to summarize the existing evidence concerning school‐based interventions on mpox globally. Methods The review methodology was based on the Arksey and O'Malley guidelines and it was reported in strict adherence with the PRISMA‐ScR checklist. Ten databases were searched to retrieve literature relevant to the review topic. Thereafter, the retrieved literature were deduplicated and screened for inclusion into the review based on a set of eligibility criteria. Only one journal paper, a short communication on the national monkeypox outbreak in England, satisfied the selection criteria and was included in the review. Data extracted from the included paper were collated, summarized, and presented. Results The paper described how suspected cases of mpox infection were managed in some school settings through vaccination and self‐isolation approaches and revealed a low (11%) mpox vaccination uptake rate in school‐setting. The preventive methods adopted, such as the exclusion of exposed persons from school (in three school settings) and separation of those exposed those who were not in contact with the affected persons (one school setting), played a major role in the low transmission rate reported. This review also found a huge dearth of literature on school‐based interventions on mpox despite its global spread. Conclusion With the call for a multisectoral approach in the fight against mpox, it pays to leverage on the potential of school settings in public health actions against mpox.

Mpox in children and adolescents and contact follow-up in school settings in greater Paris, France, May 2022 to July 2023

“…Even if we had chosen an exhaustive contact tracing and follow-up strategy (individual contact, weekly follow up, specialised medical advice and vaccination proposal), the outcome may not have been different in terms of medical management and post-exposure vaccination. Other similar studies have also found low post-exposure vaccination rates in school settings (11%) [ 26 ]. This fact can be linked to minimisation of risk of infection/lack of awareness by parents, fear of stigmatisation or secondary effects of the vaccine, distance to regional surveillance teams who ensured the contact tracing and follow-up, or the decision by some families to seek medical advice elsewhere.…”