Hands-foot-mouth disease outbreak have been confirmed in East London

(The Post Script) – At least 10 cases of hand-foot-mouth Disease outbreak have been confirmed in East London in the Eastern Cape. The disease was firstly discovered in KwaZulu-Natal earlier this month confirming more than 300 cases. According to the Buffalo City municipality these disease is common on children between the age of three and six. The municipality urges parents, day care centres and primary schools to lookout for symptoms on children, if these symptoms appears they should keep the child at home after visiting the nearest clinic.

Spokesperson of the Buffalo City Metro municipality Samkelo Ngwenya confirmed the outbreak and promised that the municipality is fighting with everything they can to contain the outbreak. “These are mainly children and they are impacting primary schools as well crèches. Working with those who are affected we are urging parents and principals to be vigilant let us know when they pick up the symptoms. What’s important is awareness and calmness so we are able to contain this in our city”, said Ngwenya.

The municipality’s health services assured that day-care centres and primary schools will be inspected by an environmental health practitioners to ensure that they meet the basic health and hygiene standards and those who fall short will face temporary close.

Symptoms includes flue like symptoms, mouth sores, blisters on hands and feet can be seen after three to six days of exposure to the disease and can last up to ten days. Officials recommended that people clean surfaces on regular basis, make use of clean toilets, drink clean water and the use of hand sanitizer have been confirmed to be effective.

In KwaZulu-Natal schools have started screening children before classes and alerted parents on symptoms to lookout for in children before sending them to school. Babongile Mhlongo the environmental health director at KwaZulu-Natal health department said that most of these facilities where the disease is common have resources at disposal to fight the disease. She said “we fully understand the shortage of water around the country, where people don’t have water should just use the little water they have with regular soap.”

Mhlongo cleared that Hand-foot-mouth Disease is not like covid 19, it’s a very mild disease however the practices to fight the disease are similar. She urges people not to panic, if people with elderly people with commonalities contract the disease should visit their nearest clinic or doctor. The disease is not the same as the foot and mouth disease found in animals.