Health

China puts nation on alert to try to stop deadly virus

by mtippett | May 3, 2008 at 07:44 am

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Another deadly virus has the Chinese authorities worried.

BEIJING - China's Health Ministry issued a nationwide alert Saturday calling for heightened efforts to control a virus that has caused the deaths of 22 children in one city and shows signs of spreading.

Health bureaus around the country must step up monitoring for hand, foot and mouth disease following a "relatively large" outbreak in the central city of Fuyang, the Health Ministry said in notices on its Web site.

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Jordan Yerman

at 08:23 on May 3rd, 2008

Some more detail, which does not paint a very pretty picture:

So far, 4,529 children have been sickened by the virus, known as enter virus 71, or EV71, in 15 cities in Anhui. The cities with the most cases were Fuyang, Huainan, Bozhou, Bengbu and Hefei, a provincial health department spokesman said.

    Wang Jinshan, secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, visited hospitals in Fuyang on Friday and called for a long-term system to prevent outbreaks of major infectious diseases.

    Forty-five medical specialists dispatched by the Health Ministry and the provincial health department have arrived in Fuyang.

    The province has upgraded its public health emergency status from class three to class two, which means the provincial government can quarantine patients and control movements in and out of Fuyang.