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Can household transmission of influenza virus be prevented? To find out, investigators randomized outpatients with positive rapid influenza test results and their household contacts (mostly children) in 407 households in Hong Kong to one of three interventions:
Diet and lifestyle education (control group)
Hand hygiene (hand soap and alcohol hand rub after sneezing, coughing, or touching surfaces)
Hand hygiene and surgical face masks (worn as often as possible for 7 days at home or when out of the home with the index patient)
Eight percent of household contacts developed confirmed influenza. The proportions of household contacts that developed clinical or reverse transcription (RT)-PCR–confirmed influenza did not differ significantly among group…