What are the symptoms of hand foot and mouth disease?

It usually affects children under 10 years of age, but older children and adults are sometimes affected. Affected adults and older children tend to develop a milder form of the illness compared to younger children. Like many virus infections, the illness often starts with a feeling of being unwell for a day or so. This might include a high temperature (fever). After this a sore throat commonly occurs, quickly followed by small spots that develop inside the mouth. These soon progress into small mouth ulcers.

A day or so later, small spots usually appear on the hands and feet. Spots sometimes also appear on the buttocks, legs and genitals, but rarely on other parts of the body. The spots are similar to chickenpox, but are smaller. Unlike chickenpox, they are not usually itchy but can be quite tender.

Is hand foot and mouth disease serious?

Usually not. The fever and spots usually clear within a few days. The mouth ulcers can be painful, and may last up to a week. The sore mouth may make a child miserable for a few days. In a very small number of cases, the virus affects the heart muscle or brain to cause a serious inflammation of the brain (meningoencephalitis) or heart (myocarditis) - but this is rare. There is some evidence that infection during pregnancy may cause miscarriage and poor growth of the unborn baby in some cases, but this seems to be rare.

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