KiasuParents - Parenting in Singapore

Anyone got first hand experience in this? Seems quite serious this year.

super_dad wrote:Anyone got first hand experience in this? Seems quite serious this year.

Yuh boy... 1000 cases in 1 week??! That's almost as bad as dengue. Some more so serious as to cause brain damage.

So far the friends I have whose kids have gotten HFMD before were pretty cool about it - it seems like their children got over it quickly with only mild symptoms - so either they were extremely lucky or the media has overblown the issue. Whatever it is, better safe than sorry. Will discuss with my wife about keeping my daughter in the house for 2 weeks.

My boy got twice before when he is 17 month old. Very active leh. like almost not sick like that.

But I guess it depends on the virus. Better to be careful...

Well, hopefully he is now immune to it...

mincy wrote:My boy got twice before when he is 17 month old. Very active leh. like almost not sick like that.

But I guess it depends on the virus. Better to be careful...

Well, hopefully he is now immune to it...

If he got it twice, how could there be immunity?

The kindergarten that my kid is attending got 2 cases of HFMD, quite worried now.

ChiefKiasu wrote:

mincy wrote:My boy got twice before when he is 17 month old. Very active leh. like almost not sick like that.

But I guess it depends on the virus. Better to be careful...

Well, hopefully he is now immune to it...

If he got it twice, how could there be immunity?

I was reading the paper the other day and they quote some doc to say, most of the time they will have immunity once they got it. erm I think my boy's case last time is super suah

I think there are different strains. So, now he got immunity to both. How's that for kiasu??

hi Chief kiasu, you question got me curious too so I googled and find this on Dr Greene

"...by several different viruses, including coxsackieviruses A5, A9, A10, A16, B1, B3, enterovirus 71, foot-and-mouth disease virus, and herpes simplex. The vast majority of cases, however, are caused by coxsackievirus A16.

A child with a healthy immune system will form antibodies to whichever virus caused the infection. If your son is re-exposed to the same virus, he will probably not be re-infected. He is still susceptible, in varying degrees, to the other viruses. Since 1963, most children have had one case of hand-foot-and-mouth syndrome, caused by coxsackievirus A16.

There is one other snag. While most children clear their bodies of the virus within one week, coxsackievirus A16 occasionally succeeds in hiding inside children's own cells, like herpes. By eluding the cellular immune system, coxsackievirus A16 can cause chronic or recurring skin lesions. Healthy humoral immunity is able to keep these recurrences from being as severe as the initial episode.

Will your son catch hand-foot-and-mouth syndrome again? Probably not, but there are no guarantees. Who knows? In the next century, enterovirus 71 might become the major cause of hand-foot-and-mouth syndrome. Even so, the human immune system has a remarkable history of adapting to the ever-changing microscopic world around us."

So may be My son did not really got it twice but it was the reccurrence from the first epidsode. I remembered when he got the symptons, it was like 2 weeks apart.

However, I did hear that it is still possible to get it more than once if it is different strain. e.g. You get coxsackieviruses A16 the first time, you will still get enterovirus 71

Wow... this is real science... thanks to Google everyone can become a doctor now Good job! Now... where did I leave that stethoscope?

BTW... does anyone know if HFMD is air-borne? I have always assumed that it is contact-based, ie. you catch it only if you touch someone who has it.