Since March this year, a relatively large scale of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) epidemic has occurred in Fuyang City of Anhui Province, and other regions across the country also witness a rising trend of the hand-foot-mouth disease epidemic. On May 2 the Ministry of Health officially brought the hand-foot-mouth disease into the legal infectious diseases. The Beijing Municipal Government highly valued the prevention and control of hand-foot-mouth disease, promptly studied and deployed the work related to prevention and control hand-foot-mouth disease and quickly took a series of comprehensive measures on prevention and control.

I. Measures on prevention and control
1. Tightening epidemic reporting system  All hospitals shall carry out the daily reporting system concerning patients with hand-foot-mouth disease in hospital or under observation. In nurseries, kindergartens and primary schools throughout the city, the morning and noon inspection system for hand-foot-mouth disease and the daily hand-foot-mouth disease “zero reporting” system have been established.

2. Strengthening the epidemiological investigation and the aetiological inspection on cases  The disease control institutions at municipal, district and county levels shall conduct the aetiological inspection and the epidemiological investigation for all patients who are in hospitals or critically-ill patients, achieving two 100% of the epidemiological investigation rate and the aetiological inspection rate for severe cases.

3. The health service personnel in communities responsible for medical observation at home  The health service center in each community throughout the city shall carry out medical observation on isolators with hand-foot-mouth disease at home; the prevention and health doctors in communities shall conduct the follow-up survey daily and visit in person to provide patients with instructions on treatment of children with the disease and house disinfection.

4. Vigorously carry out health education  Health knowledge is the best “vaccine” for prevention of hand-foot-mouth disease. The disease control organs at each level of the city issued the publicity materials such as publicity foldouts of Prevention of Hand-foot-mouth Disease and posters of Disinfection Guide and Washing Hands Frequently and Correctly to Ensure Health, and thoroughly carried out health education focusing on child parents, staffs of nurseries and kindergartens and teachers and students of primary schools.

II. Epidemic condition of hand-foot-mouth disease in Beijing
Since the Ministry of Health brought the hand-foot-mouth disease into the legal infectious diseases Type C for management on May 2, the reporting cases of hand-foot-mouth disease in the city ever increased by a larger extent in the first ten days and the middle ten days of May. The occurred cases of hand-foot-mouth disease in the whole city decreased significantly in the last ten days of May; since May 24 the newly-occurred cases in the whole city are less than 200 per day, and the cases mainly happens separately without collective epidemic.

From Jan. 1 to June 3, 2008 the total reporting cases of hand-foot-mouth disease in the whole city reached 8,429 (recovery of 6,904 cases). As of 24:00 June 3, total 1,201 samples of 1076 patients in the whole city were tested, of which 292 samples showed EV71 virus, 73 samples CA16 virus and the viruses of 72 ones are to be further determined. The constituent ratios of EV71 and CA16 are 66.8% and 16.7% respectively.

Experts of epidemiology, clinic cure and lab detection across the country and our city all hold that the current occurrence of hand-foot-mouth disease in Beijing is at normal level.