<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>HFMD cases up again <!--10 min-->
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Lee Hui Chieh
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->THE number of children coming down with hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is on the rise again.
The weekly count crossed the warning level of 402 two weeks ago and continues to grow.
Last week, 553 people were diagnosed with the disease, up from 415 in the previous week.
While these figures still fall short of the epidemic level of 565 for now, they are expected to keep increasing because traditionally, more HFMD cases crop up during Aug to Oct every year.
But this peak - the second one in the year - usually affects fewer people than the first peak from March to May, said Dr Lyn James, director of the Health Ministry's communicable diseases division.
Still, it was during last week that Singapore registered its first death from HFMD since a severe outbreak in 2000-2001 killed seven children here.
Three-year-old Marzuk Adi died on Aug 6, probably from encephalitis or inflammation of the brain, brought on by a severe form of HFMD caused by a virus called enterovirus 71, or EV71.
Elias Kindergarten in Woodlands, which Marzuk attended, has reopened on Monday after a 10-day closure to clean up.
Dr James was speaking on the sidelines of a regional forum on HFMD, organised jointly by the Health Ministry and the Regional Emerging Disease Intervention (Redi) Centre. At the forum, Singapore vaccine company SingVax, Chinese vaccine company Sinovac Biotech and Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control - which are all racing to be the first to come up with a HFMD vaccine - also gave updates on their progress.
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Lee Hui Chieh
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->THE number of children coming down with hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is on the rise again.
The weekly count crossed the warning level of 402 two weeks ago and continues to grow.
Last week, 553 people were diagnosed with the disease, up from 415 in the previous week.
While these figures still fall short of the epidemic level of 565 for now, they are expected to keep increasing because traditionally, more HFMD cases crop up during Aug to Oct every year.
But this peak - the second one in the year - usually affects fewer people than the first peak from March to May, said Dr Lyn James, director of the Health Ministry's communicable diseases division.
Still, it was during last week that Singapore registered its first death from HFMD since a severe outbreak in 2000-2001 killed seven children here.
Three-year-old Marzuk Adi died on Aug 6, probably from encephalitis or inflammation of the brain, brought on by a severe form of HFMD caused by a virus called enterovirus 71, or EV71.
Elias Kindergarten in Woodlands, which Marzuk attended, has reopened on Monday after a 10-day closure to clean up.
Dr James was speaking on the sidelines of a regional forum on HFMD, organised jointly by the Health Ministry and the Regional Emerging Disease Intervention (Redi) Centre. At the forum, Singapore vaccine company SingVax, Chinese vaccine company Sinovac Biotech and Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control - which are all racing to be the first to come up with a HFMD vaccine - also gave updates on their progress.
