An outbreak of hand-foot-mouth disease has occurred in Quanzhou County, Guangxi. So far, 13 infants and young children with severe cases have died, and more than 20 patients have been sent to relevant hospitals in Guilin City for medical observation.
Relevant officials from the Guilin Municipal Government introduced that from January 1 to 14:00 on April 8 this year, Quanzhou County had already seen a cumulative total of 13 cases of infant deaths due to severe illness. These cases were distributed across eight townships and 13 natural villages, all involving infants under the age of three. Quanzhou is the largest agricultural county in terms of population in Guilin City, located at the key intersection of Hunan and Guangxi. According to the head of the Quanzhou County Health Bureau, due to the change in the pathogen spectrum of this outbreak of hand-foot-mouth disease, most of the fatal cases did not show rashes, and the rashes that appeared in individual cases were also not obvious. This greatly increased the difficulty for grassroots medical personnel in diagnosing hand-foot-mouth disease. Moreover, local grassroots hospitals have poor medical conditions and lack necessary rescue equipment. There is not a single pediatric ventilator or blood gas analyzer in the entire county, resulting in these severely ill infants being unable to receive effective rescue treatment and subsequently dying.