VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnamese Health Ministry’s Preventive Health Department has urged authorities in all localities bordering Cambodia to strengthen their health quarantine systems to prevent penetration of the unidentified disease that has killed 56 Cambodian children.
Most of the child patients were in ages ranging from three months to 11 years old, and most of the deaths occurred within 24 hours of hospitalization, the department said.

In order to prevent the disease from spreading to Vietnam, the department requested that the heads of the international health quarantine centers and local health departments, especially those in localities bordering Cambodia, tighten border the health quarantine system to detect the disease.

All concerned agencies must closely supervise people entering Vietnam from Cambodia, and if, or when, a suspect case is found, isolation can be applied to prevent its spread, the department said.

Health units should also coordinate with relevant agencies at border gates in examining animals and animal products that are brought into Vietnam.

Cambodian health officials are continuing to investigate the causes behind the mysterious deaths after saying they had made an important discovery over the weekend.

The Pasteur Institute in Cambodia tested samples taken from 24 patients and found that 15 had tested positive for Enterovirus Type 71 -- a common cause of hand, foot and mouth disease that can also cause severe neurological complications, mainly in children, said Dr Nguyen Van Binh, the head of the department.

Hand, foot and mouth disease is spread by sneezing, coughing and contact with fluid from blisters or infected feces. It is caused by enteroviruses in the same family as polio. No vaccine or specific treatment exists, but illness is typically mild and most children recover quickly without any complications. Many infected children don't get sick, but can still spread it to others.

"These results now give a good explanation to this outbreak," Dr. Philippe Buchy, head of the institute's virology unit, said in an e-mail over the weekend, CNN reported.

The World Health Organization also noted that a "significant proportion of the samples" had tested positive for EV71, but it cautioned that the outbreak has not been fully solved, and more analysis is needed, according to CNN.

Epidemiologists are still trying to piece together information about the cases by interviewing parents because some details may have been omitted or missing from medical charts, and specimens were not taken from most children before they died, the NYDaily News quoted Dr. Nima Asgari, who is leading the WHO investigation, as saying.

"As far as I'm aware, EV-71 was not identified as a virus in Cambodia before," Asgari said, adding that based on the information now available it's likely that the majority of untested patients were infected with it as well.

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre