HFM disease

Singapore on verge of hand, foot and mouth outbreak

Fri Aug 22, 2008 10:29pm EDT

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SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore is on the verge of a hand, foot and mouth disease outbreak, the Straits Times reported on Saturday, quoting government health officials.

The paper said 553 people were afflicted with the virus last week, up from 415 the week before. Last week's figure was just 12 fewer than the Health Ministry's official "epidemic level".

Hand, foot and mouth disease, which is treatable, usually affects children and causes fever and rashes on the hands, feet and buttocks. A three-year child died earlier this month in the city-state.

The disease has this year killed 44 people in China, 10 in Taiwan and 11 in Vietnam.

(Reporting by Kevin Lim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

courtesy of: www.reuters.com

Well, the HFM disease is coming. With 553 people getting this disease, it is sure to spread fast. In case you do not know what is HFM, it is a disease that usually begins with fever and poor appetite. There would also rashes on your hands and soles of your feet. There is also a wrong perception that adults would not be infected from this.

The goverment had been taking up several measures to prevent the spread of Hand, foot and mouth disease as having it as a epidemic would affect a lot of people. Imagine a epidemic occurs in Singapore. The direct consequences is that kindergarten would be affected. Some parents may think that the hygiene of the kindergarten is bad and that affects the number of parents sending their child to kindergarden, instead, they employed bebysitters to look after them. This would deprove the child's literacy level before primary level and thus primary school teachers would have a more difficult time teaching them, thus resulting in a lack of teachers.

Another problem that all schools may face is the hindering of progress of teaching as teachers would be hindered of their progress when time is needed for checking for check-up of the hand foot mouth disease symptons. Checking them in the first place would have a effect of nipping it into the bud and thus preventing it to spread to other students. Schools also may have to close down and that would affect students taking National Examinations as their syllabus would be taught at a faster rate and thus affecting their understanding.

Another problem affects the economy of Singapore. This would probably happens because parents who are working would take leave to take care of their sick child so that affects Singapore's working rate and economy.