BENGALURU: Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a viral illness caused by a virus that belongs to the Coxsackie virus family.
Symptoms
■ It starts with a fever for a day or two followed by rashes and blisters
■ The rashes are mainly seen in the hands, mouth, and in the legs, travelling up to the level of buttocks (hence the name of the disease)
■ The child may also have difficulty eating due to oral ulcers but the blisters in the hands and legs cause minimal pain and discomfort (recheck if last part of this sentence is what doc wants to say)
Age group
School-going children under the age of 10 are most commonly affected. Typically, the younger the child, the more severely the disease manifests in the body. Infants who get the disease from an older child can suffer more because of the lack of immunity in younger children. Though rare, adults can also get the disease
Recovery time
The hand foot and mouth disease usually lasts about 5 to 7 days and is self-limiting, which means that the disease goes away by itself. Even without treatment, the disease usually clears after a week without any residual marks, except perhaps, hyper-pigmented black spots where the blisters were present earlier. Typically, these also clear after two weeks without leaving any scars.
Precautions
The spread of the virus occurs through direct or indirect contact with contagious bodily discharge like nasal secretions, feces or fluid from blisters.
The simplest thing to do to contain the infection is to isolate the infected child at home. If the child is kept at home for a minimum of 7 days, until the blisters resolve, the spread of the illness to other children can be prevented. In some cases, the child may continue to shed the virus in the faeces uptil 11 weeks. Avoiding visits to public places will go a long way towards avoiding an epidemic.
Using hand sanitizers and teaching the children to regularly wash their hands with soap or disinfectant after defecation can prevent the spread of the virus through fomites i.e objects touched by an infected person which may carry infectious microbes that can get transmittted to others who use the same objects.
The virus has been reported to be found in supermarket trolleys, toys and other objects handled by infected children as the blisters are common in the palms. This can, in turn, result in an epidemic of HFMD by spreading to all the children who visit the supermarkets and use the same toys and hold the trolleys.
The author is a consultant at Aster CMI Hospital
Medication
No medicine is necessary as it is a self-limiting disease
For fever and pain paracetamol can be used
Soothing lotions like calamine can be used for the rashes
Useful home remedies
Soft diet, as the mouth ulcers will prevent the child from eating anything spicy or sour
Tender coconut water can be given as it can hydrate the child and also will be soothing to the child
Cod liver oil capsules with all vitamins are known to enhance the immunity thus aids the recovery process
Bathing in salt water and lavender oil application is also known to be helpful