Philippines-Doctors, health care providers told to report Enterovirus 71 cases

July 10, 2012 5:48pm

The Health Department will require doctors and health care providers to report incidents of Enterovirus 71 infections by making it a notifiable disease....

A notifiable disease is a disease that must be reported to public health authorities at the time it is diagnosed because it is potentially dangerous to human or animal health...
The DOH said EV-71 causes diseases of varying intensity, including the often mild hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), acute respiratory disease, acute flaccid paralysis (polio-like) and the deadly brainstem encephalitis.
It said HFMD is a self-limiting illness whose symptoms include fever with skin lesions or rashes.

Philippine authorities last weekend went on alert against what was then a mystery disease, amid reports of children in Cambodia dying from it.

Also, the DOH and World Health Organization (WHO) clarified the Cambodian EV-71 infection was of the encephalitis type and not HFMD.

The DOH said affected Cambodian children had fever followed by rapid respiratory deterioration and impaired consciousness.

"Death occurred 24 hours from hospital confinement," the DOH said http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/264880/news/nation/doctors-health-care-providers-told-to-report-enterovirus-71-cases