โรคมือเท้าปาก ในเด็ก

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD), a common febrile illness in children under 5 years old, has become an important problem in the countries in Asia-Pacific region and Thailand. The disease is often found in children at nursery and kindergarten schools. Enteroviruses are the cause of the disease. Poor personal hygiene, weakness of the immune system, and poor hygiene in the environment increase the risk of enterovirus infection. Viruses are transmitted through the oral route and commonly found in saliva, mucus, and excrement of patient. Clinical symptoms are various depending on the seriousness of the disease. In a non-severe case, the symptoms include low fever, skin rash or vesicles and mouth ulcers, or herpangina which will recover within 7-10 days. In a severe case, the symptoms develop into neurological complications, poliomyelitis-like paralysis, and eventually death. Diagnosis of this disease has mainly relied on clinical symptoms because the diagnostic techniques of viral species isolation of the virus in cell lines, or detecting viral RNA by PCR are laborious, time consuming, and costly. There is no specific regimen of treatment and no vaccine for prevention. Therefore, the surveillance and implementation of public health interventions for HFMD are important and necessary to reduce the burden of this disease and to control and prevent the disease spreading.

Key words: Hand-foot-mouth disease, enterovirus, infectious disease in children