Almost 12,000 Chinese contract hand-foot-mouth disease death toll hits 30
Pastor Dale Morgan
Almost 12,000 Chinese contract hand-foot-mouth disease death toll hits 30*
* Story Highlights
* NEW: Almost 12,000 Chinese contract hand-foot-mouth disease
* NEW: Death toll from enterovirus 71 rises to 30 as disease spreads rapidly
* Provincial government restricts movement in and out of hard-hit Fuyang
* Outbreak worries Chinese officials preparing for upcoming Beijing Olympics
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Hand-foot-mouth disease has struck 11,905 people
and has proved fatal for at least 30 cases, all of them children,
China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported Monday.
A child suspected of having the deadly enterovirus 71 virus receives
treatment in Hefei, central China.
The official count has increased dramatically in recent days, the result
of an order issued Friday by the Ministry of Health mandating that all
cases be reported, said Tang Xiaoping, deputy head of the health bureau
of Guangzhou.
Chinese health authorities have been dispatched to the worst-hit
province, Anhui, in rural eastern China, where 22 of the fatalities have
occurred, all of them blamed on enterovirus 71, or EV-71, one of the
most common causes of HFMD.
The provincial health administration said all of the deaths in Anhui
occurred in Fuyang City and that 1,314 of the 4,496 children infected in
the city were hospitalized, Xinhua reported.
Of the total 5,840 child infections reported in the province, 689 were
registered Sunday, it said.
The provincial government has quarantined people exposed to the virus
and limited movement into and out of Fuyang, where the outbreak was
first reported in mid-March.
Authorities there have also closed schools and sprayed streets with
disinfectant. Extra beds have been crowded into hospital corridors to
accommodate the influx of patients attributed to the disease.
Fuyang officials have been accused of sitting on information of the
outbreak last month even as children were dying. But a World Health
Organization official said weeks passed between the outbreak in
mid-March and the first reports by local officials because they did not
know what they were dealing with. Local officials say they are doing all
they can.
Explainer:
• Hand-foot-mouth disease is a relatively common viral infection that
usually begins in the throat.
• It is not spread from pets, but can be spread by person to person.
• Contractable through direct contact with nose and throat discharges,
saliva, fluid from blisters, or the stools of an infected person.
• Victims most contagious the first week of having the disease.
• Time between infection and development of symptoms is three to seven days.
• Infection occurs most often in children under age 10.
• Symptoms include: fever; loss of appetite; headaches; rash with small
blisters on head, hands, feet or diaper area; sore throat; ulcers in
throat, mouth and tongue.
• No specific treatment other than relief of symptoms.
• Complete recovery generally occurs in five to seven days.
• May cause dehydration and seizures, as well as death.
Though the case fatality rate has dropped from 11 percent during March
to 0.2 percent during April, according to the WHO, the numbers of people
infected show no signs of decreasing.
Zheijiang Province in east China has reported 1,198 infections among
children this year; a 5-year-old boy died last month.
It reported 101 cases in 2005, 793 cases in 2006 and 1,607 cases last
year, Xinhua said.
Guangdong Province reported 1,692 cases, an increase of more than 700
percent over Sunday. Three of the cases proved fatal.
In southwestern Chongqing Municipality, 42 cases have been identified
since Thursday, none of them fatal.
The capital city of Beijing has tallied 1,482 cases, 818 of them among
kindergartners.
Another 206 cases were reported in nearby Hebei Province.
And outbreaks have been reported in the provinces of Jiangsu, Hunan,
Hubei, Shaanxi, Jiangxi and Henan.
HFMD is not related to foot-and-mouth disease, which affects farm
animals. HFMD can be caused by a number of intestinal viruses, of which
EV-71 and Coxsackie A16 are among the most common.
"We have to do more prevention work and to inform the people about the
virus so they can do more to keep away from it," said Chinese Vice
Health Minister Liu Qian.
In mild cases, EV-71 causes cold-like symptoms, diarrhea, and sores on
the hands, feet and mouth. Severe cases can cause fluid to accumulate on
the brain, resulting in polio-like paralysis and death.
There is no treatment for severe EV-71 infections nor does a vaccine
exist. Adults' well-developed immune systems usually can fend off the
virus, but children are particularly vulnerable to it, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Across China, schools are on heightened alert as teachers and parents
are being told to re-emphasize the fundamentals of basic hygiene.
"The simple precautions -- washing their hands, not sharing food, making
sure that after they've been to the bathroom they wash their hands
again, those sorts of things," according to Anne Fowles of Beijing's
BISS International School.
Public health officials expect the number of cases to peak in June or
July, since the disease thrives in warm weather.
The virus is a concern for Chinese officials as the nation prepares to
host the Summer Olympic Games starting August 8.
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On Saturday, China's Ministry of Health issued a pamphlet urging health
bureaus to step up prevention and control efforts, Xinhua reported.
A large outbreak of HFMD occurred in Taiwan in 1998 with 78 deaths, and
smaller outbreaks recurred there in 2000 and 2001, according to the CDC.