KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia recorded 106,477 cases of the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), up to the 24th epidemiology week (ME) from June 12 to 18.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement said this was an increase of 39 times compared with the total cases for the same period last year which was during the Covid-19 pandemic with 2,710 cases.
"If compared with 31,500 cases for the same period in 2019 (before the Covid-19 pandemic), it showed an increase of 3.4 times. The cases reported nationwide for ME24 was 10.556 cases, a 19.3% fall compared with ME23 with 13,077 cases,” he said Tuesday (June 21).
Dr Noor Hisham said Selangor logged the highest cases with 29,880 infections followed by Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (11,687), Perak (10,938), Johor (7,052) and Kelantan (6,532).
According to age, he said 95,175 children aged six and below were infected with HFMD while 9,183 children aged seven to 12 were infected by the disease.
The outbreaks were mostly at nurseries, kindergartens and preschools with 1,131 outbreaks or 56% followed by private homes with 794 outbreaks (40%) and childcare centres with 57 outbreaks,” he said.
An outbreak is defined as an incident of HFMD with two or more cases in a locality and the cases are epidemiologically related as well as during the incubation period of HFMD. - Bernama