Death toll from China viral outbreak rises to 34, 27,000 infected
Pastor Dale Morgan
Death toll from China viral outbreak rises to 34, 27,000 infected*
2008-05-09 12:22:16
愁wo more Chinese children have died of HFMD, driving the national death
toll to 34.
愁he Health Ministry said HFMD incidence in the worst-hit city of Fuyang
was in decline.
廈FMD can be caused by a host of intestinal viruses.
HEFEI, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Two more Chinese children have died of
hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD), driving the national death toll to 34 --
even as the Health Ministry announced a decline in HFMD cases in the
worst-affected city.
Health authorities in east China's Anhui Province on Friday
confirmed the two children had died of HFMD triggered by the potentially
lethal enter virus 71 (EV71).
The deaths occurred in Bozhou, northwestern Anhui, and in Hefei, the
provincial capital, said Gao Kaiyan, chief of the Anhui Provincial
Health Department.
Information from the Anhui Provincial Health Department said a boy
from Bozhou, surnamed Xu and aged 14 months, fell ill on May 1. He was
moved to a county-level hospital after his condition worsened. He died
on Monday.
A girl from Yaohai District, Hefei, aged 18 months, was reportedly
admitted to the No. 2 People's Hospital of Hefei City. Her condition
deteriorated on Monday, and she died early on Wednesday.
The Health Ministry said on Friday that HFMD incidence in the
worst-hit city of Fuyang, also in Anhui, was in decline, with discharged
patients outnumbering those admitted to hospitals for the first time.
The ministry said on its website that the majority of the serious
cases had recovered, with no fatalities for seven consecutive days in
Fuyang, which had reported the initial outbreak and 22 deaths.
According to the Guidelines Regarding Prevention and Control of HFMD
published on the Ministry of Health website, HFMD can be caused by a
host of intestinal viruses, but EV71 and the Coxsackievirus (Cox A16)
were the most common.
Both EV71 and Cox A16 can cause HFMD, which usually starts with a
slight fever followed by blisters and ulcers in the mouth and rashes on
the hands and feet.
Those sickened by EV71 often show serious symptoms. It can also lead
to meningitis, encephalitis, pulmonary edema and paralysis in some
children. There is no vaccine.
As of Thursday, HFMD had sickened 24,934 children on the Chinese
mainland, of whom 34 had died. The deaths were reported in six regions:
Anhui, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan and Zhejiang.
Both Yang Weizhong, deputy chief of the Chinese Center for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), and Li Dexin, head of CDC's Institute of
Viral Disease Control (IVDC), said there had been no mutation in the
EV71 found in Fuyang, where both Yang and Li have been working.
The experts said they had finished a complete gene sequencing over
eight of the nine intestinal EV71 strains separated and lab work proved
the eight strains were 99.3 percent to 99.97 percent homologous.
"Also, the eight virus strains tested in Fuyang have a higher degree
of homology in comparison with the four other virus strains separated
from infection cases in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chongqing and Shandong
between 1999 and this year," said Li.
Work has started on the development of a vaccine against the lethal
EV71, said Li, who added: "Technically speaking, there is no problem for
developing a vaccine and I believe it won't take long."
China's hand-foot-mouth cases rise to 27,499
BEIJING, May 9 (Xinhua) -- China has recorded 27,499 hand-foot-mouth
disease (HFMD) cases so far this year as of Friday, resulting in 34
deaths, according to a Xinhua tally of local official figures.
The figure stood at 24,934 on Thursday, Xinhua found.
The rising number reflected the recent order by the Ministry of
Health that made HFMD a class C epidemic, the incidence of which must be
reported.
The southwestern Sichuan Province reported 642 HFMD cases as
ofFriday. The southernmost Hainan Province updated the number of
infections to 314 and the central Hubei Province updated its total to
1,424 on Friday. The eastern Anhui Province added 705 new cases on Friday.
Many viruses can cause HFMD, but so far, EV71 (enterovirus 71) has
been blamed for most of the 34 deaths in the epidemic.
Of the fatalities, 24 were in Anhui and four were in Guangdong.
There were two each in Hainan and Guangxi and one each in Zhejiangand
Hunan.