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On the Sudden Outbreak of Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease
By Marc | May 7, 2008
Whenever a child suffers needlessly, I really get shaken up, as I hope anyone does. Whenever I hear of a child being abused, neglected, exploited, or murdered, I can’t help feeling extreme anger toward the person(s) responsible. Then I immediately start feeling heartbroken and sad for the child who was subjected to whatever hell they were put through. It’s a consuming need to hug that child and hug my own, and then let them know they are loved. Disease and sickness can’t always be blamed on a person, so there is just the yearning without the anger.
The strange outbreaks in China and Vietnam of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) primarily caused by the EV71, Coxsackie A16, and Echo viruses are no exception.
The number of infections in China has jumped 33% literally overnight from 12,000 to nearly 16,000. (Vietnam has reported 2,000 in the first 4 months of this year.) Although there have been fortunately few deaths (26 as of Tuesday), the disease is spreading fast in kindergartens throughout China.
From the news article on Chinaview.cn:
There is no vaccine and experts are still trying to find out effective treatment, but most children suffering from mild forms of the disease could recover. Preventive measures such as disinfection of tools and avoid populous public places are said to be helpful to stop the spread of the disease.
Most of the victims are children, I’d guess mainly because of the ease of diseases spreading though schools and daycares (I’ll be nice and limit my opinions on that whole topic), and the main symptoms are painful blisters or ulcers on the mouth and rashes or blisters on the hands and feet.
China has gotten a crappy reputation in recent years because of their human rights violations, persecution of Christians, and continued Communist regime, but those things are issues with their government, not their people, and especially not their children. These are kids, people! Please pray for the children suffering from HFMD as well as for their parents, the schools infected, and the doctors that they would quickly find a cure or effective treatment for it.
While you’re at it, please pray that the talks between China and Tibet produce a positive result for both sides. My personal hope is for Tibetan independence, but China’s kind of got blinders on to that whole situation. Could you also pray for the cyclone victims in Burma? Thanks. That would be great.
There’s a lot more stuff to pray about in this big screwy world, but those are what’s on my mind now.
Go light your world.
Topics: In the News, Pray for |
May 10th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Are you sure its Hand Foot and Mouth disease? Thats pretty common, even around here. It can be uncomfortable but never results in death. Little blisters can be treated with neosporin if they burst, which causes it to spread. Otherwise, they go away on their own in a week or so. Ella got it from her little friend Erin, and I caught it from her. Erin’s mom had it too, sh got it in her mouth, which is more painful. Mine limited to the hands, which caused some trouble with doing dishes, but otherwise no real difficulty.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Ok, I did a little poking around. Apparently this is a point of confusion because it is not some rare mutant strain. Its the same virus that causes it here. It started in California, but for some reason it is killing Chinese children. No one really knows why.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I was not aware that it was common. Actually, I hadn’t even heard of it before, but it’s still curious that it’s spreading like wildfire over there and seems dangerous to them. Thanks for the info and the investigation, Ehren!