Nurseries In Ang Thong Hit With Hand, Foot And Mouth Disease

Contagious disease strikes 30 children

Nearly 30 children have contracted hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) after it spread through nurseries in Angthong, Lamphun and Nan provinces, the Public Health Ministry revealed yesterday.

Published on November 15, 2007

In Angthong province, six children were struck by the disease at the Wat Mongkol Thamnimit Nursery in Sam Ko district, and three children were affected at Wat Yeung Khongkharam Nursery in Chaiyo district. Both nurseries have been closed for two weeks.

Seven children were hit with the disease at a nursery in Muang Lamphun and 13 children contracted the disease at nurseries in Nan province. None of the cases were considered severe.

Angthong provincial health official Thawal Poblarp said about 50 cases of HFMD were detected in the province every year. Most patients suffer from a less severe strain of HMFD, called coxsackie virus, and the fatal enterivirus strain had not yet been detected.

Thawal said he dispatched officials to schools and nurseries in the province to alert teachers to watch out for HMFD. Officials were instructed to shut down schools if more than two cases of the disease were detected in one place.

Dr Khamnuan Ungchusak, director of the Disease Control Department's Epidemiology Bureau, said 6,775 HFMD cases had been detected this year (up to November 10) - double the 3,300 cases detected last year.

He said the increase was partly due to intensified controls, which allowed more cases to be detected.

HFMD typically affects children in nurseries and kindergartens from September to November, but the illness usually goes away by itself. It is characterised by mild fever, poor appetite, mouth sores, and a rash with blisters. It can spread from person to person by direct contact and sufferers are most contagious during the first week of the illness.

Children should be taken to a doctor if they have a high fever and seizures.

Khamnuan said the public should also watch out for dengue hemorrhagic fever, which had killed 72 people this year and affected 56,000 people overall.

The Nation

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