Cases of HFMD in Vietnam increase more than tenfold year on year | Look At Vietnam

Cases of HFMD in Vietnam increase more than tenfold year on year 

May 27, 2012

A child being treated for hand, foot, mouth disease at a hospital.

The number of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) cases in Vietnam is 10.2 times higher over the first five months of 2012 than it was for the same period last year.
According to the Ministry of Health’s report on Friday, 46,277 HFMD cases have been recorded across Vietnam since the beginning of this year.
Twenty-seven deaths have also been reported, 1.7 times more than last year, it said.
The ministry noted that cases with serious complications concerning heart and brain function, as well as the respiratory system have been reported at major hospitals including the Hanoi-based National Hospital of Pediatrics and the Ho Chi Minh City-based Children Hospital I.

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Two more children die of HFMD in Vietnam

It is also taking the disease less time to become serious and turn deadly.
It said a patient who did not display the symptoms associated with HFMD, such as blisters and fevers, ended up having HFMD when her condition worsened and tests were conducted, according to the ministry.
Dr. Nguyen Tran Hien, chief of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said his agency is cooperating with the National University of Singapore to study the Enterovirus 71 (EV-71), which causes most HFMD cases in Vietnam, to see if it is mutating.
The institute will also ask the ministry for permission to cooperate with China in conducting human trials of the EV-71 vaccination produced by that country, Hien said.

By Nam Son, Thanh Nien News  

Two more children die of HFMD in Vietnam | Look At Vietnam

Two more children die of HFMD in Vietnam 

May 18, 2012

A child is treated with HFMD in Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City has reported two more fatal cases of the hand, foot and mouth disease this month.
A two year old boy, only identified as H.C.P., died on the night of May 9 after being admitted with fever and blisters to the HCMC Children’s Hospital No.1 the next day, Tuoi Tre reported Sunday.
Earlier, another boy of the same age named T.T.P. died at the hospital on May 1, after falling sick on April 29.
Inspections around his neighborhood found four more children were infected with the disease and being treated at home while another was at the city’s Tropical Diseases Hospital.
The two deaths have raised the nationwide death toll of the disease to four this year among nearly 2,700 infections, which is double the same period last year.
Most cases in Vietnam were caused by Enterovirus 71 (EV-71), which is found in the throat of 71 percent of healthy people, studies have found.
Doctors so far have not found a vaccine or specific medication for the disease, which causes mouth sores and blisters on hands and feet and so far, has killed only children, mostly under 3.
Parents and teachers have been asked to maintain good hygiene as the best prevention method.