Small children have a reputation as disease magnets. That's partly a result of their lax personal hygiene, but also because their immune systems are still developing. Could we turn that vulnerability into an early warning system for disease?
"They are like the canary in the coal mine," says Andrew Hashikawa of the University of Michigan. But most public health departments do not routinely monitor nurseries and daycare centres for outbreaks of illness.
So Hashikawa's team asked four centres in Michigan looking after about 600 under-fives to test a web-based system for four months last winter. The staff reported daily absences due to illnesses such as colds, flu, stomach bugs and conjunctivitis.
Crucially, the team saw a two-day spike in stomach bugs that seemed to foreshadow a gastroenteritis outbreak among school-age children in the county three weeks later. Such an early warning would give schools and nursing homes time to step up hygiene measures, says Hashikawa, who presented the study last week at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference.
For flu, such surveillance could remind adults to get vaccinated as outbreaks are starting, he says.
This article will appear in print under the headline "Why toddlers make good canaries"
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