Hand, foot, and mouth disease in mainland China

Abstract

www.thelancet.com/infection Vol 14 November 2014 1041 The outbreaks of hand, foot, and mouth disease triggered some panic in the Chinese population, particularly with regard to children with skin lesions on their hands or feet. In clinics, doctors saw many children with such lesions. In May 2008, the health ministry of China added hand, foot, and mouth disease to category C of notifi able diseases, which means that all diagnosed cases must be reported through a national webbased system for disease surveillance, and took measures to streamline reporting requirements. Doctors were concerned about missing cases of hand, foot, and mouth disease. Many probable cases of the disease were submitted to the provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but some of these were misdiagnosed, especially in rural hospitals. In our clinics, we met some of these patients who had been misdiagnosed and reported to the CDC. Weijia Xing and colleagues extracted epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory data from cases of hand, foot, and mouth disease reported to the Chinese CDC. Both probable cases and defi nite cases were included in their study, but whether or not the probable cases were misdiagnosed as hand, foot, and mouth disease was not mentioned. The fact that misdiagnosed cases of the disease were included in the study casts doubt on any results.