BEIJING -- The incidence of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) in the worst-hit Chinese city of Fuyang was on decline, with discharged patients outnumbering those checking in to hospitals for the first time, China's health ministry said on Friday.
The ministry said on its website that the majority of the serious cases had recovered with no fatalities for seven consecutive days in Fuyang in east China's Anhui Province, which had reported the initial outbreak and 22 deaths out of the 34 nationwide.
On Wednesday, Fuyang reported 269 new cases of HFMD, of whom 249 were hospitalized, the ministry said. In comparison, 324 people were discharged. No fatalities were reported that day and very serious cases dropped by 10 from the previous day.
By Wednesday night, 3,764 patients had recovered and 1,340 were still in hospital, according to the ministry.
The ministry's press office said the latest figures in Fuyang were not available yet.
The ministry said new cases had been steadily declining since May 1, and the newly hospitalized were mostly mildly ill.
The ministry attributed the decline to the effective measures of prevention and control implemented by the local government and hospitals and enhanced public awareness, and urged officials to step up their efforts till the outbreak was halted.
By Thursday, the Fuyang city government had earmarked almost 50 million yuan ($7.1 million) for medical cost reimbursements and disease prevention and control.
Meanwhile, a virus lab has begun operating in the city to research EV71, an intestinal virus that can cause a severe form of the disease, according to the city's center for disease control and prevention.
In the past, most of the research was conducted in Beijing and Hefei, the provincial capital. The new lab will make local virus tests possible and help control the outbreak in the city.
As of Thursday night, 24,934 people had been infected with HFMD nationwide, according to a tally by Xinhua based on reports from provincial-level health bureaus. All were children.
Li Dexin, an expert with the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said lab results found no indication that the EV71 virus detected in the Fuyang cases had mutated into a more virulent strain.
Sequence analysis had found very high homogeneity between the eight isolates from the Fuyang specimens on the one hand and the EV71 viruses isolated in the cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chongqing and Linyi between 1999-2008 on the other, which were identified as the C4 subgenogroup.
"The result indicates that no mutation has taken place in the EV71 virus in Fuyang," he said.
According to Li, preparations have begun for research into an EV71 vaccine.
"Technically, there won't be much of a problem in the research and it won't take too long" to develop a vaccine, the expert added. At present, there is no EV71 vaccine.
