Recently in South East Asia a higher than usual instance of two infectious viral diseases commonly affecting children has been reported: Herpangina or Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, and Chikungunya fever.
Herpangina presents with painful ulcer-like sores in the mouth and on the side of the throat, and with a characteristic rash and small round lesions on the soles of the feet, palms of the hands and sometimes, on the buttocks and genitalia.
The child is usually miserable, sometimes fevered and may not want to eat because of the mouth and throat sores. However, sometimes the child may only suffer from the sores in the throat so apart from the desire not to eat, the symptoms may not be apparent to the parent.
As with most childhood infections such as measles or mumps, very unusually, complications can occur leading to meningitis, myocarditis and encephalitis. The symptoms of these illnesses are a high fever, limb weakness and vomiting. So, with a sick child, it’s always better to get them checked by a doctor.
19 March, 2009
A well-known disease in India, Chikungunya fever is treated by our homeopath, Dr. Pandya, on a daily basis when he is practising in India. Usually this mosquito-born disease is considered a risk to travellers in India, Sri Lanka and Africa but recently, cases have been on the rise in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The illness causes a sudden fever with pains and swelling in the wrists, knees and ankles with chills, headaches and nausea. There is no inoculation for the illness so the only prevention is taking the usual precautionary measures against mosquito bites.