Cause of mysterious disease in Cambodia

Hand-foot-mouth disease cause of the plague in Cambodia

07/11/2012

Many children in Cambodia have died from a mysterious illness since April of this year. As the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Cambodian Ministry of Health report, the first indications of the underlying disease have now been discovered.

The Department of Health of the Kingdom of Cambodia has notified WHO of the onset of an undiagnosed illness in which 61 children have died. The mysterious suffering may possibly be due to the agents of hand-foot-and-mouth disease, according to the latest WHO communication.

Laboratory tests provide evidence of hand-foot-and-mouth disease
Much of the infected children came from WHO „from the southern part of the country and was admitted to a children's hospital in Phnom Penh.“ They suffered from symptoms such as high fever, respiratory and / or neurological complaints with rapid worsening of respiratory function. In the subsequent laboratory tests, pathogens of hand-foot-mouth disease were discovered in several samples, so that the WHO and the Cambodian Ministry of Health suspect them as the cause. Also, the reported symptoms are consistent with the typical clinical picture of hand-foot-and-mouth disease.

Only children under the age of ten years become ill
The hand-foot-and-mouth disease is triggered by various viruses, including the so-called enterovirus 71, which was discovered in samples from Cambodia. Especially children are endangered by an infection, whereby the viruses first cause a high fever and other relatively nonspecific complaints. This is followed by an itchy rash on the hands and feet as well as a rash on the oral mucosa. Often, the disease sounds again without medical treatment, but it can also lead to life-threatening meningitis, myocarditis and pneumonia. Since the pathogens of hand-foot-and-mouth disease - as with many other infectious diseases - are passed on via the so-called droplet infection, special hygiene measures should be observed in contact with affected patients. However, this is by no means the case in Cambodia, so that the disease has spread rapidly here in recent months. All reported illnesses affected children under the age of ten, and in the case of fatal illnesses, patients died 24 hours after hospital admission.

Further potentially fatal pathogens detected in the laboratory samples
The WHO and the Ministry of Health of Cambodia, despite the evidence of the pathogens of hand-foot-and-mouth disease as the cause of the deadly diseases, have not been established. Because the samples also revealed other potential causes of fatal disease, such as dengue fever and streptococci. However, Nipah viruses and Sars pathogens, which were also detected, have now been ruled out by WHO experts as the cause of the mysterious deaths. (Fp)

Picture: Lupo