Do not let schools become hotspots for hand, foot and mouth disease
At kindergartens, the pressure to prevent hand, foot and mouth disease is increasing because preschool children are more contagious than other age groups. According to Ms. Dang Thi Tinh, Vice Principal of Soc Nau Kindergarten, although schools strengthen propaganda and monitor children's health daily, the effectiveness of epidemic prevention still largely depends on the coordination of parents.
Children can be infected from many different environments outside of school. When parents detect abnormal signs in their children, they need to proactively take their children to the doctor and notify the school to coordinate handling," Ms. Tinh said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Pham Thi Thanh Huyen, Vice Principal of Huong Duong Kindergarten, said that the biggest challenge is early detection of suspected cases. The school maintains daily health checks for children, regularly disinfects classrooms and trains teachers on epidemic prevention. However, preventing the risk of spread is only effective when families and schools closely monitor the health status of children.
According to HCDC data, hand, foot and mouth disease in Ho Chi Minh City is maintaining an increasing trend and circulating at a high level in 2026. From the beginning of the year to week 28, the city recorded a total of 25,201 cases.
Although there were times when the number of cases decreased slightly, Ho Chi Minh City still recorded about 1,000 new cases per week. In week 28, the city had 1,026 cases of hand, foot and mouth disease, showing that the epidemic has not cooled down and is still widely circulating in the community.
Before the new school year, when children return to school with high exposure density, the risk of hand, foot and mouth disease is forecast to continue to increase if strict measures of monitoring, early detection and disease prevention are not maintained at home as well as at school.
Many children get hand, foot and mouth disease before having obvious symptoms
Doctor Truong Huu Khanh, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Infectious Diseases Association, said that hand, foot and mouth disease is still a difficult problem for Ho Chi Minh City due to the disease's spreading characteristics and the city's specific population conditions.
The virus that causes hand, foot and mouth disease is not only transmitted through the digestive tract but also persists in the saliva of sick children. Meanwhile, young children often have a habit of holding their hands, sharing toys and close contact with each other, making the risk of infection very high, especially in environments with a large concentration of children.
Ho Chi Minh City has a high population density, many children going to school, plus the characteristic of a large immigrant population, so disease control is difficult. Hand, foot and mouth disease is a disease that most young children can get once or several times before forming natural immunity, so it appears with different levels every year," Dr. Khanh said.
He believes that the years when many cases of EV71 strain infection appear often record an increase in the number of severe cases. This is an epidemiological rule that is unavoidable even though the health sector has implemented many measures such as hand washing, isolation and allowing children to drop out of school when sick.
A big difficulty is that many children get sick in the early stages and it is very difficult to recognize. When detected, children may have spread to those around them," he said.
Assessing the disease prevention prospects, Dr. Truong Huu Khanh expects that hand, foot and mouth disease vaccine will contribute to reducing the number of cases as well as limiting severe cases, similar to the effectiveness that dengue fever vaccine is aiming for.
Regarding the reasons why Ho Chi Minh City always records a high number of cases, experts believe that this mainly stems from high population density, high urbanization rate, large number of immigrants and hot and humid weather conditions, alternating rain and sunshine, which are favorable factors for virus circulation and spread, so the effectiveness of epidemic prevention still depends greatly on the cooperation of the people.
The health sector has continuously propagated disease prevention measures. However, parents do not always let children drop out of school when there are signs of the disease, while many cases of hand, foot and mouth disease are mild and very difficult to detect. This is a challenge that is not easy to solve," he emphasized.
