Enterovirus

(Mom don't read this :P)

From an online news site:
Taiwan has barred children aged under five from going to public play areas in a bid to contain the spread of a highly contagious virus that has killed seven so far this year, officials said Sunday. Playgrounds at fast food outlets and hospitals in northern Taipei county were shut down from Saturday, as officials raced to sterilise hundreds of kindergartens and elementary schools.
The highly contagious enterovirus 71, or EV71, can lead to acute hand, foot and mouth disease, which is most dangerous to the young. Dozens of children have died of the illness in mainland China this year.
In Taiwan, the latest victim was an 11-month-old baby from southern Chiayi county who died on Friday, just four days after he was found to have contracted the virus, health officials said.
A total of 192 children in Taiwan have developed severe symptoms after contracting the virus this year, according to official data. — AFP


This week my class roll has gone back up to the full 14 students. But last week, most days I had a maximum of 10 students show, the beginning of the week having only 6-8 students. I finally asked someone and found out children were dying because of this. It's very scary and parents are worried, some thinking of taking their students out of school for awhile. Our ball pool/play room is closed this week for cleaning, and a lot of Chinese teachers stay a bit later to clean classrooms. 5 years ago it was SARS, this time it's enterovirus. Although this is really only harmful to children, most adults have developed immunity to this and related viruses through exposure.

I worry because my ongoing cold/sinuses obviously aren't helping the children, but I hope I'm not spreading something else too. Apparently this isn't the first time they've had an outbreak of this, there was a really bad one in 1998 with 78 deaths, and smaller occurrences in 2000 and 2001. Lets just hope this is a small outbreak too.