Apart from vaccination, other drugs cannot effectively prevent hand-foot-mouth disease.
Parents often leave messages to me on Weibo to consult on the prevention of hand-foot-mouth disease. Some people ask: [A colleague told me the way to prevent hand-foot-mouth disease: after the baby comes home from playing outside, he washes his hands, washes his face, changes his clothes, and then sprays him with children’s throat-opening sword spray. Said this is what the pediatrician said. Can throat-opening sword spray do this? Is it appropriate to spray this prevention even if there is no disease? [Some people also asked: [Is it safe for the baby’s kindergarten to spray a medicine called ribavirin into the baby’s mouth every morning to prevent hand-foot-mouth disease? Problems such as these highlight the misunderstanding of hand-foot-mouth disease in the whole society.
The above-mentioned throat-opening sword and ribavirin do not belong to the category of vaccines and cannot prevent hand-foot-mouth disease. Abuse will bring new diseases instead.
It is still necessary for parents to know more about the basic knowledge of hand-foot-mouth disease.
Hand-foot-mouth disease is caused by a variety of enteroviruses and is mainly infected by close contact with patients’ feces, body fluids and respiratory secretions (such as sneezing droplets) and contaminated towels, toys and other articles. Hand-foot-mouth disease mostly occurs in preschool children under 6 years old, so the prevention of hand-foot-mouth disease focuses on kindergartens.
The incubation period of HFMD is usually 2-7 days, Without obvious warning, Most of the children suddenly became ill, Early symptoms are fever, followed by a rash. The rash caused by hand-foot-mouth disease is a transparent blister, mainly concentrated around the hands, feet, mouth and anus. The rash is not painful, itchy, scabbed or scarred. At the same time of the rash, children may also have symptoms similar to colds (upper respiratory tract infection), such as cough, runny nose, sneezing, etc.
As long as symptomatic care is provided, most of them can heal themselves in 1-2 weeks.
Like diarrhea caused by rotavirus, the vast majority of hand-foot-mouth cases are relatively mild. At present, there is no drug for enterovirus to treat hand-foot-mouth disease, so the treatment of hand-foot-mouth disease can only try its best to relieve the symptoms it shows. For example, children with hand-foot-mouth disease show high fever symptoms, so antipyretics are used for children. If symptoms such as vomiting and dehydration occur, supplement them with water and electrolyte. Most children with hand-foot-mouth disease can heal themselves in 1-2 weeks.
However, there may also be a very small number of children with serious illness, so if the baby has any of the following conditions, he or she needs to go to the hospital in time:
1. Persistent high fever;
2. Frequent vomiting;
3. Limb shaking, paralysis or convulsion;
4. Excessive sleep during the day, easy to wake up, fidgety;
5. Difficulty in breathing.
The virus that causes HFMD is actually enterovirus. Because there are many kinds of viruses, Therefore, having hand-foot-mouth disease once does not mean that you will not have it again. Therefore, even children infected with hand-foot-mouth disease still need to prevent this disease. The virus is mainly transmitted through hand-mouth and fecal-mouth transmission. Therefore, to prevent and control hand-foot-mouth disease, the Ministry of Health has a five-sentence sutra: wash hands frequently, eat cooked food, drink boiled water, ventilate frequently and bask in the sun.
This article is taken from the book “Ji Lianmei Talk: Chinese Should Use Drugs This Way”, which is reprinted by the author’s authorized clove garden.