OBJECTIVETo investigate the epidemiological and clinical features of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) since several outbreaks of HFMD caused by enteroviruses were documented in China between 2007 and 2008.

METHODSHFMD cases reported to the National Infectious Disease Information Management System database between May 2008 and April 2009 were assessed. Clinical features in some of the severe and fatal cases were analyzed the etiology of the outbreaks was investigated.

RESULTS89.1% of reported HFMD cases were found in children<5 year-old with an age-specific incidence rate of 834.1/100 000 in the first year as the notifiable disease in China from May 2008 to April 2009. The incidence, mortality and percentage of severe cases were studied for three regions of China and found to be highest in the central region. The incidence of severe cases and mortality in rural population were significantly higher than those in urban population. Among the laboratory confirmed EV17 positive cases there were 52.6% mild, 83.5% severe, and 96.1% fatal cases. More myoclonic jerks were found in the severe case group than in group that died. Tachypnea, lip purpling, pink foaming and low limb temperature occurred more frequently in the fatal cases than in the severe cases.

CONCLUSIONThe epidemic of HFMD in China was characterized predominantly by EV71 infections, had relatively high mortality rates especially in the central region, and was most prevalent in young, rural populations.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; China ; epidemiology ; Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease ; epidemiology ; pathology ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Middle Aged ; Young Adult

Objective Through analyzing the surveillance data on typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever in 2015 to understand the related epidemiological features and most possible clustering areas of high incidence.Methods Individual data was collected from the passive surveillance program and analyzed by descriptive statistic method.Characteristics on seasonal,regional and distribution of the diseases were described.Spatial-temporal clustering characteristics were estimated,under the retrospective space-time method.Results A total of 8 850 typhoid fever cases were reported from the surveillance system,with incidence rate as 0.65/100 000.The number of paratyphoid fever cases was 2 794,with incidence rate as 0.21/100 000.Both cases of typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever occurred all year round,with high epidemic season from May to October.Most cases involved farmers (39.68％),children (15.89％) and students (12.01％).Children under 5 years showed the highest incidence rate.Retrospective space-time analysis for provinces with high incidence rates would include Yurnan,Guangxi,Guizhou,Hunan and Guangdong,indicating the first and second class clusters were mainly distributed near the bordering adjacent districts and counties among the provinces.Conclusion In 2015,the prevalence rates of typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever were low,however with regional high prevalence areas.Cross regional transmission existed among provinces with high incidence rates which might be responsible for the clusters to appear in these areas.

Objective To investigate the clinical severity,etiological classification and risk factors of severe cases with hand,foot and mouth disease (HFMD).Methods A total of 1 489 records on severe and fatal HFMD cases reported to the national pilot surveillance system of HFMD were used to analyze the demographic,medical treatment,etiological classification of the cases.Treatment outcome related risk factors were also studied with multi-variable stepwise logistic regression method.Results Seven out of the 1 489 severe HFMD cases died of this disease.A total of 960 (72.9％) were under three years old and 62.9％ were male and most of the cases (937,62.9％) resided in rural areas.Among all the cases,494 (33.2％) went to seek the first medical assistance at the institutions of village or township level.Durations between disease onset and first medical attendance,being diagnosed as the disease or diagnosed as severe cases were 0(0-1) d,1 (0-2) d and 2 (1-4) d,respectively.In total,773 (51.9％) of the severe HFMD cases were diagnosed as with aseptic meningitis,260 (17.5％) with brainstem encephalitis,377 (25.3 ％) with non-brainstem encephalitis,6 (0.4％) with encephalomyelitis,1 (0.1％) with acute flaccid paralysis,4 (0.3％) with pulmonary hemorrhage/pulmonary edema and 68 (4.6％) with cardiopulmonary failure.Of the etiologically diagnosed 1 217 severe and fatal HFMD cases,642 (52.8％) were with EV71,other enterovirus 261 (21.5％),Cox A16 36 (3.0％),1 (0.1％) with both EV71 and Cox A16.However,277 (22.8％) showed negative on any pathogenic virus.Complication (Z=3.15,P=0.002) and duration between onset and diagnosed as severe cases (Z=3.95,P＜0.001) were shown as key factors related to treatment outcomes.Conclusions Most severe HFMD cases appeared in boys,especially living in the rural areas.Frequently seen complications would include aseptic meningitis,non-brainstem encephalitis and brainstem encephalitis.EV71 was the dominant etiology for severe and fatal cases.Early diagnosis and complication control were crucial,related to the treatment outcome of HFMD.

Objective: To understand the characteristics and changes of the incidence of amoebic dysentery in China during 2015-2018, explore the causes of high incidence in some areas and provide a data base for the development of national prevention and control strategies and measures. Methods: Data were collected from the infectious disease reporting management information system from Chinese Disease Control and Prevention. To understand the seasonal, population and area distributions of amoebic dysentery, descriptive epidemiological method and software SPSS 16.0 were used to analyze the amoebic dysentery data. Results: A total of 4 366 amoebic dysentery cases were reported without death in China during 2015-2018. The reported average annual incidence was 0.08/100 000, and the overall proportion of laboratory confirmed cases was 68.23%(2 979/4 366). Amoeba dysentery mainly occurred during May to October. One seasonal peak was observed in 2015 and 2017 (July and June, respectively), and two seasonal peaks were observed in 2016 and 2018 (June and October). The patients were mainly children aged under 5 years (42.28%, 1 846/4 366), and the incidence rate decreased with age in children aged under 10 years. Of these, children under 1 years of age had the highest incidence rate (1.28/100 000). The number of cumulative reported cases in Guangxi, Henan, Guangdong, Heilongjiang and Jiangxi provinces ranked top five from 2015-2018, accounting for 64.50% (2 816/4 366) of the total. The cumulative cases in Dongxing county, Guangxi, in Suixian county, Henan and in Ranghulu district, Heilongjiang, respectively accounted for more than 50.00% of the total number of cases in their provinces. Conclusions The incidence rate of amoebic dysentery reported in China during 2015-2018 showed a decreasing trend, with a higher incidence in children under 5 years old and a higher number of cases in some areas. It is suggested to further investigate and analyze the diagnosis and reporting of amoeba dysentery in key areas and promote the update of the diagnostic standards for amoeba dysentery.

Objective: To understand the characteristics relating to the etiology and complications of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) based on data from the pilot National Sentinel Surveillance (NSS) program so as to explore the feasibility, advantages and disadvantages of the NSS. Methods: Data were extracted from the NSS system, conducted in 11 provinces of China from November 2015 to October 2016. Characteristics regarding the etiology, complications of HFMD and factors related to the positive rates of HFMD specimens were analyzed under the logistic regression method by SPSS 20.0 software. Results: A total of 4 783 specimens were collected, including 3 390 from mild, 1 390 from severe and 3 from death cases. The overall positive rate was 81.43% (3 895/4 783). Other enteroviruses (non EV71/Cox A16 enteroviruses) appeared the major serotype (52.68%, 1 482/2 813) for mild infection of the disease while EV71 was for the severe cases (65.31%, 706/1 081). The serotype spectrum revealed by the pilot NSS was almost identical with the existing surveillance system. Other enteroviruses tended to infect younger children (χ²=130.17, P<0.001) than EV71 and Cox A16, in China. The multivariate logistic regression results showed that higher positive rate was associated with specimens which were collected from males, at children’ hospitals, in peak seasons, timely and in stools. The positive rates presented downwarding trends with the extension of the onset-sampling interval (χ²=14.47, P<0.001 in stool specimen; χ²=31.99, P<0.001 in throat swab; χ²=24.26, P<0.001 in anal swab). Aseptic meningitis, non-brainstem encephalitis and brainstem encephalitis appeared the top three complications of both EV71-associated and other enteroviruses-associated severe HFMD cases. Conclusions Factors as gender, season/place/timeliness of specimen collection, and types of hospital all appeared independently influenced the positive rates. NSS seemed feasible to be used as an alternative or supplement tool to the existing surveillance program in China.

BACKGROUND: Severe hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) is a life-threatening contagious disease among young children and infants. Although enterovirus A71 has been well acknowledged to be the dominant cause of severe HFMD, there still remain other unidentified risk factors for severe HFMD. Previous studies mainly focused on identifying the individual-level risk factors from a clinical perspective, while rare studies aimed to clarify the association between regional-level risk factors and severe HFMD, which may be more important from a public health perspective. METHODS: We retrieved the clinical HFMD counts between 2008 and 2014 from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which were used to calculated the case-severity rate in 143 prefectural-level cities in mainland China. For each of those 143 cities, we further obtained city-specific characteristics from the China City Statistical Yearbook (social and economic variables) and the national meteorological monitoring system (meteorological variables). A Poisson regression model was then used to estimate the associations between city-specific characteristics (reduced by the principal component analysis to avoid multicollinearity) and the case-severity rate of HFMD. The above analysis was further stratified by age and gender to examine potential modifying effects and vulnerable sub-populations. RESULTS: We found that the case-severity rate of HFMD varied dramatically between cities, ranging from 0 to 8.09%. Cities with high case-severity rates were mainly clustered in Central China. By relating the case-severity rate to city-specific characteristics, we found that both the principal component characterized by a high level of social and economic development (RR = 0.823, 95%CI 0.739, 0.916) and another that characterized by warm and humid climate (RR = 0.771, 95%CI 0.619, 0.960) were negatively associated with the case-severity rate of HFMD. These estimations were consistent across age and gender sub-populations. CONCLUSION Except for the type of infected pathogen, the case-severity rate of HFMD was closely related to city development and meteorological factor. These findings suggest that social and environmental factors may also play an important role in the progress of severe HFMD.
Adolescent ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; China/epidemiology* ; Cities/epidemiology* ; Female ; Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease/virology* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Male ; Risk Factors