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Virus epidemic feared in Hong Kong

Officials are fearing a new epidemic in Hong Kong of a virus which killed more than 50 people in Taiwan last year.

The fears have been raised with news that a two-year-old boy died three days after developing a fever, which tests indicated was caused by a virus called enterovirus 71 (EV71).

Enterovirus 71 replicates in the gut or respiratory tract and then spreads via the blood to other organs and tissues, causing a variety of distinctive diseases including myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), hand-foot-and-mouth disease (a usually-mild childhood condition, involving a skin rash) and encephalitis.

The virus swept Taiwan and South China including Hong Kong in 1998, killing 55 people, mostly children. Many more were sick but recovered. The same virus also contributed to an outbreak of fatal myocarditis among children in Sarawak in 1997.

The dead boy's sister and four classmates from the same nursery he attended have also showed symptoms of hand-foot-and mouth disease - a typical manifestation of the virus. But having hand-foot-and-mouth disease does not necessarily imply infection with EV71 as other agents can cause the same disease.

Spread by poor toilet hygeine, the illness generally clears within a week, but when caused by EV71, complications including viral meningitis and encephalitis can occur.

It is assumed the boy who died had suffered neurological complications.

The toddler is the first person in Hong Kong suspected to have died of EV71 this year, although there have been four other confirmed cases, all of whom recovered.