The Min­istry of Health is ad­vis­ing cit­i­zens that a few sus­pect­ed cas­es of Hand, Foot and Mouth Dis­ease (HFMD) have re­cent­ly been re­port­ed.

How­ev­er, they em­pha­sised that al­though it does not pose a pub­lic health threat, peo­ple should be vig­i­lant in pro­tect­ing them­selves and their chil­dren from the dis­ease.

The Min­istry high­light­ed that "while HFMD does not pose a se­ri­ous health risk, it is very con­ta­gious."

The dis­ease is eas­i­ly spread from per­son to per­son through cough­ing; sneez­ing; close con­tact; con­tact with in­fect­ed fae­ces, such as when chang­ing a di­a­per; and touch­ing sur­faces or ob­jects which have been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with the virus.

The symp­toms of HFMD are:

·         fever

·         loss of ap­petite

·         sore throat

·         a feel­ing of be­ing un­well

·         1-2 days af­ter the fever starts:

o   painful sores in the mouth

o   a skin rash may al­so de­vel­op on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. Some­times rash al­so ap­pears on the knees, el­bows, and but­tocks. 

The symp­toms usu­al­ly re­solve on their own with­in 1 to 2 weeks and are gen­er­al­ly mild to mod­er­ate in in­ten­si­ty.

In a state­ment, the MoH gave tips to avoid HFMD:

Mem­bers of the pub­lic, es­pe­cial­ly par­ents and guardians, are there­fore en­cour­aged to ex­er­cise good hy­gien­ic prac­tices to re­duce the spread of in­fec­tion:

·         Wash hands fre­quent­ly and thor­ough­ly, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter chang­ing di­a­pers and af­ter us­ing the toi­let

·         Cov­er mouth and nose when sneez­ing and cough­ing

·      Clean dirty and/or reg­u­lar­ly touched sur­faces, in­clud­ing toys, door knobs, and coun­ter­tops, first with soap and wa­ter and then dis­in­fect them with a so­lu­tion of chlo­rine bleach (made by adding 1 ta­ble­spoon of bleach to 4 cups of wa­ter)

·         Avoid close con­tact with per­sons who dis­play symp­toms of HFMD (e.g. kiss­ing, hug­ging, shar­ing eat­ing uten­sils/ cups, etc.)

·         Avoid shar­ing eat­ing uten­sils/ cups, tow­els etc.

·         Keep sick in­fants and chil­dren away from school and gath­er­ings un­til they are well

·         Main­tain the clean­li­ness of homes, child care cen­tres, kinder­gartens and/or schools.

The Min­istry of Health added that "pre-emp­tive mea­sures" have been tak­en "in­clud­ing ad­vis­ing mem­bers of the med­ical fra­ter­ni­ty (both in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors) to be pre­pared for pa­tients pre­sent­ing with symp­toms of the dis­ease. Per­sons are there­fore en­cour­aged to speak to their pri­ma­ry care physi­cians should they have any con­cerns."