2008-05-07

BEIJING: China's health minister ordered all communities to ramp up the fight against a viral illness that has sickened thousands of young children, as the death toll rose Wednesday to 28.

So far 15,799 cases of hand, foot and mouth disease have been reported across the country this year, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

A 2-year-old girl in the southern province of Hunan died of the disease Tuesday after being in a coma, the provincial health bureau said on its Web site.

Another death was reported in the neighboring Guangxi region, Guangxi health officials said without giving any details. Xinhua said the victim was a 3-year-old boy who died May 3 of hand, foot and mouth, a common viral sickness that typically causes little more than a fever and rash.

Most of the cases in China have been blamed on enterovirus 71, or EV-71, one of several viruses that cause the illness. EV-71 can result in a more serious form of the disease that can lead to paralysis, brain swelling and sometimes death.

The rocketing number of cases spreading across a large area brings up parallels with the Communist leadership's handling of previous infectious outbreaks, especially that of SARS in 2003.

Government attempts to conceal the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome — a new disease at the time — contributed to its spread, ultimately causing 774 deaths worldwide and forcing Beijing to apologize amid international criticism.

The hand, foot and mouth disease outbreak is the latest headache for authorities as they gear up for this summer's Beijing Olympics. Preparations have already been upset by unrest in Tibet and protests during the global torch run.

According to a Xinhua report issued late Tuesday, Health Minister Chen Zhu ordered all communities to have a plan for dealing with hand, foot and mouth.

Kindergartens should be closed for two to three weeks if one serious case or two cases are reported at the school, Chen was cited as saying during a teleconference to discuss prevention and control of the disease.

He also recommended stepped-up health education, reducing the number of large group activities and implementing precautions to prevent the disease's spread in hospitals.

More medical experts were being dispatched to hard-hit Anhui province, where 22 children have died.

Three deaths have been reported in Guangdong province in the south and one in Zhejiang province in the east.

The disease has also cropped up in areas ranging from the tropical island province of Hainan in the south to Jilin province in the northeast and Yunnan province in the southwest.

Two kindergartens in Beijing, which has reported about 1,500 cases, were closed after students showed symptoms of the disease, Xinhua said. Nearly 2,000 cases were reported in the financial capital of Shanghai, though there were no reports of patients in critical condition.

A woman in the information office of the Health Ministry who refused to give her name, a common practice among Chinese officials, referred journalists to the Xinhua reports.

Hand, foot and mouth disease causes fever, mouth sores and rashes with blisters. It spreads easily through sneezes or coughs and mainly strikes children age 10 or younger.

There is no vaccine or specific therapy, but most children affected by mild forms recover quickly without problems. It is not related to the foot and mouth disease that affects livestock.

The World Health Organization says the virus normally peaks in June and July so there could be an increase in infections as the weather warms.

The disease has shown an increased occurrence in Asia in the last decade, including in Vietnam, Taiwan, and Singapore, WHO China representative Hans Troedsson said.

Singapore's Ministry of Health said Tuesday that 1,465 cases of hand, foot and mouth disease were reported there last week, bringing the total number of cases in 2008 to 10,490. No deaths have been reported.

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