The Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD), a viral illness, is quite common among infants and children during monsoon. However, there has been a sudden increase in HFMD cases in the city in the last fortnight.
Paediatricians, who are seeing at least three to four children with HFMD symptoms in the last fifteen days, said the illness is seasonal. N. Karthik Nagesh, chairperson of Manipal Advanced Children’s Centre, said cases are usually reported every year when schools reopen or during rains.
He appealed to parents not to panic. Children below five years are more prone to infections. The disease spreads through contact and saliva and is self-limiting. The child recovers in five to seven days, Dr. Nagesh said. Symptoms include fever, painful blister-like sores in the mouth and itchy lesions on the palms, feet, elbows, knee joints, and buttocks, he said.
Chikkanarasappa Reddy, Assistant Professor of Paediatrics in Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, who is seeing at least seven cases of HFMD cases every day, said there was no need to panic and “the important aspect is that it should be diagnosed properly and patients should maintain hygiene.”
Vishwanath Veeranna, in-charge director of Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health, said there was no outbreak of the disease in the city. “We are seeing only sporadic cases.”
