Healthytalk8 What is HFMD?
Contents
HFMD (hand-foot-mouth disease) is very common in children, and can easily spread from one child to another.
Common in children below 10 years and kids between 14 years are more prone to this infection, also seen in adults (1).
Hand-foot-mouth disease is caused by a coxsackievirus.
It is characterized by ulcers inside or around the mouth, rash, and blisters on hands, feet, legs, and buttocks.
Does It spread?
Yes, It can easily spread from child to child because kids don’t know or understand what is it.
The coxsackievirus is a member of the Picornaviridae family which includes non-enveloped single-stranded RNA viruses (2)
It generally goes away on its own after 7 to 10 days (3).
HFMD’s large outbreak occurred in Asia in 1997, and it usually occurs during the spring, summer, and fall months.
There is one other similar name disease that occurs known as foot and mouth disease, which mostly affects livestock.
Causes of HFMD
HFMD is a common infection caused by a group of enteroviruses A16, and enterovirus 71 can also be responsible.
The virus can easily spread, and the child may get HFMD through contact with other people through:
- droplets of the sneeze, and cough
- fluid from blister
- stool
- faeces
- saliva
- nasal mucus
- direct contact with unwashed hands or a surface containing traces of the virus.
However, other strains of coxsackievirus and enterovirus can also be responsible (4) (5)
Some people may carry and pass the virus despite having no symptoms of this disease, animals are not involved in this.
Sign and symptoms of HFMD
Symptoms begin to occur 3 to 6 days after exposure to this virus, this time period is called the incubation period.
The most common signs and symptoms include:
- Feeling tired
- nausea and vomit
- fever
- discomfort
- loss of appetite
- crankiness
- irritability in infants and kids
- sore throat
A child’s sore throat is usually seen in red spots, on the tongue, and inside the mouth, the blister can become painful.
If the blister causes pain in the mouth then some signs may be seen during the swallowing in the child including:
- Not drinking or eating
- Even, avoiding drinking a favourite beverages
- only wanting to drink cold fluid
- drooling more than usual
Facial ulcers, blisters, or lesson can also develop around the nose or mouth.
After 2 to 3 days of signs later other signs may be seen including:
- Blister (may see on hands, feet, mouth, buttocks, and groin (6) (7)
- rash on discoloured spots and bumps
- itchy
The rash generally resolves on its in about a week.
Fingernail and toenail loss may also occur about in 4–8 weeks, however, it is temporary, and nails will regrow with time (8).
Who is at high risk of HFMD? and complications
Most cases are relatively harmless, and as we know that young children are at high risk of HFMD (9)
Risk increases if infected kids normally attend school, or other activities, which spread the virus more quickly than normal.
Children who are weak immunity, and suffer from other illnesses, also include adults, are at risk of HFMD.
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If we talk about its complications, then HFMD or other viral illnesses are rare, but sufficient treatment is also present.
Mild complications can happen due to symptoms such as dehydration due to discomfort or difficulty in swallowing food and fluid.
Complications that can be serious if treatment is left untreated or not taken treatment, in both adults and kids include:
- Brain inflammation
- flaccid paralysis
In more serious cases which include neurologic and cardiac complications, even death may also occur.
How Doctors Diagnose HFMD?
Doctors usually by looking at sores, rashes, or blisters, which is enough to decide if it is HFMD.
Your healthcare can also be detected children’s stools for about 6 weeks after infection.
In addition, early detection of HFMD is important in preventing an outbreak in the child population (10)
Treatment Options
There is no specific treatment available for hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD), and antibiotics won’t help because it is a virus cause (11)
In most cases, HFDM requires no specific treatment, it will resolve its own within 1 to 2 weeks.
So doctors typically focus on relieving pain with certain medications which include:
- acetaminophen and NSAIDs for managing pain and fever
- gargle with prescribed medicine can be used to cover the ulcer
- avoid spicily, and soda that might irritate a sore throat
- pleconaril (a new antiviral medicine to treat enterovirus 71) (12)
A 2018 study showed that the consumption of a prescribed Chinese herbal medicine is recommended to clear the symptoms.
Preventions
It can be easily prevented by following simple steps include:
- Wash your children’s hands often, especially before consuming meals or using an alcohol-based sanitizer.
- avoid the infected person’s direct contact
- keep infected children away from school or gathering areas to prevent them from spreading to others
- wear a mask, especially when you are outside
- avoid touching surfaces, clothes, etc of an infected person
- maintain proper hygiene
- use a handkerchief, while coughing or sneezing
- clean patients’ utensils properly or don’t share them with other
- disinfected or cleaned surfaces often, like toys, or play area (13), etc
Making sure the patient remains well hydrated is important because dehydration can make the situation worse.
Breastfeeding has also been shown to decrease rates of severe HFMD, however, does not reduce the risk of infection of the disease.
Vaccine
There is no specific vaccine currently available, but development is underway (14) (15).
But a vaccine available for HFMD in China known as EV71 presented in December 2015 (16)
Down Line
Hand-foot-and-mouth disease is a mild, contagious viral infection common in young children (17).
By looking at patients’ symptoms, stool tests are enough to diagnose HFMD.
Make sure, the kids will consume proper fluid intake, due to the pain in the throat, it becomes difficult to eat and drink.
