A 22-month-old child in the central city of Da Nang has become the first to be killed by the hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) in Vietnam this year, VnExpress Friday.
Da Nang’s Department of Preventive Health on Friday was quoted as saying that tests at the Nha Trang Pasteur Institute in the central province of Khanh Hoa showed that Nguyen Anh Khoa tested positive for Enterovirus 71, which causes the disease.
The boy had a fever on February 8 and was brought to the local Hoan My Hospital the next day, according to the newswire. He was diagnosed with viral fever and was allowed to go home
His fever didn’t decrease and he developed abnormal symptoms like paranoia and an enlarged belly. Khoa was then brought to the Da Nang Center for Obstetrics and Pediatrics later that same day.
The child was then diagnosed with HFMD at level 2, VnExpress said.
Two days later, Khoa’s condition worsened as the disease reached level 4 – the most critical stage. He died on February 14.
According to the report, three other children at Khoa’s school – Thien Nga Nursery School – were also suspected of having HFMD.
Local agencies have sterilized the school and the area where he lived and put both under close observation.
Last year HFMD killed 138 people, mostly children, out of more than 77,000 infections in 63 cities and provinces across Vietnam.