Accordingly, all six samples of children infected with severe hand-foot-mouth disease being treated in Children’s Hospital No.1 are positive to EV71 under the genotype of B5. This type was first discovered in Taiwan (China) in 2007 and then in HCMC in 2015 and 2018.
Statistics from HCDC reported an increase in the number of children suffering from hand-foot-mouth disease in HCMC in the last few weeks. Particularly, last week, over 200 new cases were recorded.
More seriously, according to the annual progress of dengue fever, the peak time for this disease in HCMC is only 2-3 weeks away and will last until October each year. Only after a few rains, monitoring teams of HCDC have reported 20 hot spots with mosquito larvae out of the 39 locations under strict supervision, accounting for 50 percent.
It is predicted that this proportion will rise when the rainy season formally comes unless each household in each locality shows no determination in killing these larvae for better disease control.
