Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease(HFMD)

About the disease-

• Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease is common in children under the age of 5, but anyone can get it. 
• It is most commonly caused by a coxsackievirus, which belongs to a group of viruses called nonpolio enteroviruses. 
• The illness is usually not serious, but is very contagious. It spreads quickly at schools and daycare centers.
• It spreads through person-to-person contact when an infected person’s nose secretions or throat discharge, saliva, fluid from blisters, stool or respiratory droplets are sprayed into the air after a cough or sneeze.
•  It causes a blister-like rash that, as the name implies, involves the hands, feet and mouth.
• Patients usually develop fever, sore throat, painful blister-like lesions on the tongue, gums and inside of the cheeks.
• The children may develop ulcers inside their mouths. 
• Also, rashes are noticed on the palms, soles and sometimes the buttocks.
• Children are mostly treated with anti-allergic medicines and ointments. The lesions usually disappear in five to six days.  

Coxsackievirus-

• Coxsackieviruses are a few related enteroviruses that belong to the Picornaviridae family of nonenveloped, linear, positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses, as well as its genus Enterovirus, which also includes poliovirus and echovirus.
• Coxsackieviruses share many characteristics with poliovirus. 
• With control of poliovirus infections in much of the world, more attention has been focused on understanding the nonpolio enteroviruses such as coxsackievirus.
• Coxsackieviruses are among the leading causes of aseptic meningitis (the other usual suspects being echovirus and mumps virus).