Virus kills five more Chinese children

A strain of hand, foot and mouth disease has killed five more children in China, bringing the death toll in recent weeks to 39, state media said on Monday.

But the official Xinhua news agency cited health officials as saying that the epidemic was being brought under control, with more children being discharged from hospital.

A girl in eastern Anhui province died of the disease on Thursday, while one child died in southern Hainan province and three died in southern Guangdong. Close to 27,500 cases of the disease had been reported in China as of last Friday, Xinhua said earlier.

It said on Monday that new cases in some of the hardest-hit places, including Fuyang in eastern Anhui province, were now declining. "The majority of patients who were in critical condition have recovered", Xinhua quoted a Health Ministry official as saying of the situation in Fuyang.

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a common childhood illness, but in the current outbreak it has been linked with enterovirus 71 (EV71), which can cause a severe form of the disease characterized by high fever, paralysis and meningitis. There is no vaccine for the disease and normally patients recover within a week to 10 days. But cases involving EV71 usually lead to more severe symptoms.

Xinhua added that Premier Wen Jiabao had recently visited a young patient suffering from the disease in a hospital in central Henan province, as well as a local kindergarten. "Wash your hands before eating a meal and after using the toilet", Xinhua quoted Wen as telling the children.