The Public Health Ministry has asked provincial officials to watch for patients showing symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease, which is also known as coxsackie enterovirus 71.

Four children died from a fast-acting strain of disease last week, the ministry said.

They were diagnosed with what may be a new strain of the disease.

Two other children in the same district who exhibited symptoms of the disease, including a high fever, mouth sores, rashes and blisters are now in hospital under observation.

"The good news is that no new cases have been reported," Kamnuan Ungchusak, director of the ministry's epidemiology bureau said.

Doctors were unable to save the four children because their condition deteriorated rapidly, resulting in severe brain damage, he said.

The virus strain resembled one that claimed lives in Malaysia in 1997 and Taiwan in 1998.

Hand, foot, and mouth disease is not related to foot-and-mouth disease. The former affects infants and children and is contagious.

The Nation,

Deutsche Presse-Agentur