Thai Child suffering from HFMD dies

BANGKOK, July 21 (TNA) - Senior doctors said Saturday that a two-and-a-half-year-old child suffering from the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) has died at a hospital here. Professor Emeritus Dr. Prasert Thongcharoen, a leading Thai virologist at Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital and also an adviser of the Thai Ministry of Public Health’s Department of Disease Control, told journalists that the child passed away two days ago at Nopparat Rajathanee Hospital on the outskirts of Bangkok. Professor Emeritus Dr. Prasert revealed that a meeting of public health authorities concerned will be soon held and a renewed laboratory test will be conducted to verify the cause of the death of the child. Dr. Prasert suggested that people, however, should not be panic because only about six patients have died annually, out of between 8,000–18,000 HFMD cases nationwide each year, advising that the best way to prevent any HFMD infection is to have children to frequently wash their hands; while toys or those used by children are to be also washed regularly in order to kill the virus. Meanwhile, Dr. Pasakarn Akarasewi, Director of the Department of Disease Control’s Bureau of Epidemiology, affirmed that a diagnosis will be conducted again next week at the Ministry of Public Health to verify whether the child died from the HFMD in order to come up with a conclusion, saying, however, that doctors at this stage have agreed that the child died from the HFMD but the parents are in good health. (TNA)