By RIA Novosti,
Beijing : The number of children who have died in China of complications caused by hand, foot and mouth disease has climbed to 28, with all the victims being under the age of six, the Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.
The number of infected children has also risen by around 4,000, to almost 16,000. The majority of the infected are under two years of age.
Enterovirus 71 and Coxsackievirus, major causative agents for hand, foot and mouth disease, are being blamed for the epidemic. Though the death rate from the enterovirus itself is quite low, it can cause a number of severe complications depending on the age of the patient, such as polio and meningitis.
The virus first appeared in March when young children were admitted to hospitals in Fuyung, in the central Chinese province of Anhui. Nearly 6,000 children have been infected and 22 have died in the region. Three deaths were in the southern province of Guangdong, and one in Zhejiang, in the east.
The virus has since spread across China with the two new deaths reported in the central province of Hunan and southwest Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Some 2,000 children have also been hospitalized in the financial capital of Shanghai, although none of the patients are thought to be in danger.
“The country is gearing up for a nationwide war against a mass outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease with the number of cases this year continuing to surge,” the state-run China Daily newspaper said.
The virus has also spread to the Olympic host city Beijing with 1,482 reported cases – 818 of them in kindergartens. The disease is expected to reach its peak in June and July, shortly before the Beijing Olympics starts in August.
On Tuesday, Chinese authorities pledged to notify Moscow if there was any danger of the virus spreading to Russia. However, sanitary authorities in Russia’s Far East have enhanced sanitary control in the region, especially along the Russian-Chinese border.
The health of people arriving in Russia from China is being monitored.
Cases of hand, foot and mouth infection have significantly increased in the last decade in Asian countries, primarily in Singapore which has reported a total of 10,490 cases this year. No deaths have so far been reported in the coutntry.