NZ: 2013 HFMD cases

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health-wellbeing/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501238&objectid=10881570

Children fall to infectious virus
By Chloe Johnson @BackpackJourno
5:30 AM Sunday May 5, 2013


Dozens of dehydrated children are needing hospital treatment as a result of hand, foot and mouth disease.

Auckland Starship Hospital's emergency department has been treating up to 15 children, aged between 2 and 5, each week for almost a month...

 

[Shiloh]

Re: NZ: 2013 HFMD cases

Source: http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/43405-virus-puts-officials-on-edge.html


Virus puts officials on edge

Posted at 10:53am Wednesday 08th May, 2013 | By Luke Balvert luke@thesun.co.nz

An increase in the number of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) patients in the North Island has Bay of Plenty health officials urging parents and daycare centres to enforce children?s hygiene.

In the last month Tauranga Hospital has treated around 20 children, aged between two and five-years-old, suffering from dehydration as a result of the contagious virus...

 

[Catbird]

Re: NZ: 2013 HFMD cases

"Doctors on alert over virus strain

May 30, 2013

Doctors are being put on alert over a severe strain of hand, foot and mouth disease after some children were admitted to hospital.

The childhood illness, which commonly infects babies and preschoolers, has also spread to some adults, which health officials say is unusual.

Dozens of children have been treated at Auckland's Starship Hospital for dehydration caused by the disease.

Auckland District Health Board director of child health Dr Richard Aickin said two to three cases a day were being seen at the children's emergency department.

"That's only a small proportion of those children who are acquiring the disease because you have to have it as a more severe problem if you are going to come into a hospital emergency department, so there'll be quite a lot that GPs are seeing and more where the families are not going to the doctor."

He said this outbreak was more severe and a result of a less common strain of the coxsackie virus, CVA6, which infected adults more easily.

"What we usually expect is children get hand, foot and mouth once and then they become immune and we don't see it in older children or adults.

The A6 is much less common and that's why adults are now getting it."..."


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