BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Negros Occidental recorded a 6,300 percent increase in cases of hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD).
From Jan. 1 to 31, the Provincial Health Office (PHO) listed 320 cases – too high compared to only five in the same period last year.
Kabankalan City has the highest number of HFMD cases at 73.
The PHO already sounded the alarm bells in other local government units, urging their respective municipal and city health offices to intensify their information drive on how to avoid HFMD such as observing minimum public health standards.
HFMD is characterized by painful sores in the mouth and a rash on the hands and feet. Commonly caused by the coxsackievirus, this contagious infection occurs mostly in children.
HFMD may cause all of the following signs and symptoms or just some of them:
* fever
* sore throat
* feeling unwell
* painful, red, blister-like lesions on the tongue, gums, and inside of the cheeks
* a red rash, without itching but sometimes with blistering, on the palms, soles, and sometimes the buttocks
* irritability in infants and toddler
* loss of appetite/PN
