Ignorance & Awareness

Till date, there are 7-8 kids including a few months old baby confirmed to have contracted HFMD over here. Many questions like why and how did the HFMD happened here? It's simply because of the ignorance of the spreading party and GP here.

HFMD is really rare in Europe so most of them don't really know what Hand Food Mouth Diseases is. A few kids who kenna HFMD earlier were diagnosed like gum inflammation, or insect bites on foot/hand instead of HFMD!! And the PD was wondering why we, Singaporeans, were so paranoid about this HFMD thing.

So we told him about HFMD, that the virus remaining in the body would take several weeks to go away but to him, it’s just another contagious childhood virus which we shouldn't be too concerned about it. He was so surprised that someone told him that there are kids who were killed by HFMD. Maybe it’s really the climate difference and the population in Singapore which made the virus so fierce.
As for the spreading party, of course they have no such intention to spread the virus here. I believe they are now going thru "finger pointing" process now.

You can't blame us (the affected party) for doing so. We were really caught off-guard and now our kids suffer and all our plans need to be adjourned.

-3 of the kids' mummy are currently pregnant now and are worrying about the risk of getting it from the infected child.

-1 of the family has to separate the 2 kids as much as possible to prevent the elder one spreading to the younger one.

-1 family has 2 infected kids to take care of.

-1 baby who is only few months got it - imagine the pain they will be going thru at such a young age.. You can't possibly force a baby to drink water/milk???

As for me, my plans of going back Singapore this weekend had to be postponed due to this HFMD. Although, the GP here and the family doctor in Singapore did certify us to go back this weekend, I am not giving any chance for my girl to bring back the disease and spread to her niece and others back home.

We had to incur the charges for changing flight and canceling of flight which cost us a few hundred Euros. Even after 3 weeks, I still have to be very careful with my girl mixing around with others kids. All the above really imposed lots of stress and inconveniences to me and other infected families.

For those whose kids are not affected, even they have to be quarantined at home as well. Their daily lives have been affected such as their their school, extra curriculum activities ALL has be halted without any compensation, thus created some grumbling as well.

Comparing with the above, being finger pointed is just a minor issue. You guys just have to bear with it although there is no evidence which showed that you are the one who spread it but just shut your ears right now and let those who are affected have some ways of venting and grumbling. It will be gone with wind in a month or 2 and life will be back to normal.

However, this really taught us an important lesson of HFMD. Those are:

- Even the doctor certified that your kids are well; we still have to be responsible and take some precautions.

- A person with HFMD is most contagious during the first week of illness, but may continue to be contagious for several weeks after their symptoms are gone. HFMD will remain slightly contagious even though the ulcer has gone or the blisters/rashes had subsided. So personal hygiene like washing of hands have to be taken seriously.

- A person with HFMD may have only the rash or the mouth ulcers as there are strain of virus belonging to the enterovirus family.

Now, we pray for the speedy recovery for those who caught the HFMD.


The following websites is for your awareness and my reference on HFMD.

*Information on HFMD, please see the FAQs on MOH website
*Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases in Child Care Centres / Kindergartens / Pre-School Centres
*Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (Children) (KKH website)