The hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) is spreading its tentacles in northern China, with a "high number" of infants and children suffering from the seasonal epidemic in Hebei Province, the China Center of Disease Control (CCDC) said yesterday.

Children learn how to thoroughly wash their hands at a kindergarten in Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu Province, on May 18, 2009. [China Daily]

"The epidemic is moving up to Hebei Province from Henan and Shandong provinces," Wang Zijun, deputy director of the office of disease control and emergency response of CCDC, told China Daily.

"A high number of HFMD cases are being reported daily from Hebei," he said.

Wang added that the number of cases reported each day from northern provinces like Inner Mongolia was also gradually increasing since the beginning of this month.

There were some 6,000 daily cases of confirmed HFMD in China last week.

Up to last Wednesday, 354,133 cases of confirmed HFMD have been reported in China, with 124 deaths.

"HFMD is a seasonal epidemic which peaks when temperatures rise," Wang said, adding that he was still trying to figure out why the epidemic was moving up north from the central and eastern provinces.

In Henan Province, where nearly 1,700 cases of HFMD were being reported daily until a few months ago, 95 percent of the children and infants have recovered from the disease.

Zhou Yong, an official of the provincial health department, told Xinhua: "The number of cases reported in Henan is now down to about 400."

About 61,800 cases of confirmed HFMD have been reported in Henan province this year, with 36 deaths.

In South China's Guangdong Province, over 10,000 cases were reported in April alone, a sudden rise from 4,287 cases reported in March. Three of those infected died last month.

"Between April and June is the peak season for HFMD," Wang Bin, a pediatrician at Zhujiang Hospital in Guangzhou, said.

Last year, over 22,000 HFMD cases were reported in the first five months in Guangdong, which resulted in seven deaths. Most of the cases were reported in May.

More than 90 percent of cases involved children under the age of four, Wang Ming, director of Guangzhou center for disease control and prevention (CDC), said.

Wang said there was no specific way to prevent the disease.

"The risk of infection can be lowered by maintaining clean hygiene," he added.

Meanwhile, two more HFMD deaths were reported from Zhejiang Province on Monday.

"The key to saving lives is the early discovery of the disease, which is common among children but rarely fatal," Wang Zijun said.

More than 40 Chinese children died in the spring of 2008 and thousands were infected when the epidemic was linked with enterovirus 71, which can cause a severe form of the disease characterized by high fever, paralysis and meningitis.

(China Daily May 20, 2009)