Hand, foot & mouth disease - South East Asia (05): Viet Nam

International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org>

Source: Thanhien News [edited]
< http://www.thanhniennews.com/healthy/?catid=8&newsid=19852>


Viet Nam southern metro reels under contagious children's disease
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Hand, foot & mouth infection among children in Ho Chi Minh City
[HCMC] has doubled in August over July [2006], a hospital official
reported Friday [8 Sep 2006].

Truong Huu Khanh, head of the Pediatric Hospital Oneis
contagions-neurology department, said the hospital had received 120
children suffering from the disease in just the last fortnight,
against 116 in the whole of July [2006]. Around 30 percent of the
patients had suffered from complications in the brain and nervous
system, he said.

HCMC had registered 811 infections this year [2006], Nguyen Dac Tho,
deputy director of the municipal Center for Disease Control and
Prevention, said.

Hand, foot & mouth disease is a viral infection, especially affecting
small children, that usually begins in the throat. It produces small
blisters in the mouth and on the hands and feet.

The disease is also raging in other Southeast Asian countries, with
thousands of cases reported.

In Viet Nam, the disease has appeared in HCMC and some southern and
central provinces with hundreds of infections.

Tho warned prevention measures had to be taken, including hygiene in
daily activities and hospitalization at the onset of the disease.

[Byline Khanh Vy; translated from Vietnamese by Tuong Nhi]