Free Republic

Now in June, just under two months before the start of the Olympics games, I have been hard pressed to find any news stories about EV71. The story seems to have dropped 'off the radar' as people have focused their attention on the earthquake relief effort. When I ask Chinese people about the virus, some of them give me a strange look and ask 'what in the world' I am talking about. Others just smile and tell me that they have no idea what happened to the virus; many assume that the government 'cured' it. Others tell me that they...

BEIJING - A DEADLY strain of hand, foot and mouth disease has killed two more children in China, bringing the death toll in recent weeks to 32, state media said, as it praised a doctor who alerted authorities to the epidemic. An eight-month-old girl and a boy aged one and a half, who both died in southern China, were the latest victims of an outbreak international experts have warned has yet to peak. Hand, foot and mouth is a common childhood illness, but in the current outbreak, has been linked with enterovirus 71 (EV71) which can cause a severe form...

BEIJING - China's Health Ministry issued a nationwide alert Saturday calling for heightened efforts to control a virus that has caused the deaths of 22 children in one city and shows signs of spreading. Health bureaus around the country must step up monitoring for hand, foot and mouth disease following a "relatively large" outbreak in the central city of Fuyang, the Health Ministry said in notices on its Web site. The ministry warned that cases were more numerous this year than in recent years, and the peak for transmission would likely come in June and July. The outbreak is another...